Preparations for Pongu Thamil continue amid sabotage attempts by EPDP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 June 2003, 20:01 GMT]
All roads will lead to Jaffna university medical faculty grounds Friday evening where the second Pongu Thamil celebration is scheduled to begin around 4 p.m., stressing the theme 'we want our land,' organizers of the event said.

Leading activists of the Jaffna University Students Union were engaged on Thursday in giving final touches to make the event successful, activists in Jaffna said.

The event will show the international community that hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Tamil families are still languishing in welfare centres and refugee camps, as their agricultural lands and homes are still occupied by government troops in the name of high security zones even after fifteen months have passed since the signing of the ceasefire agreement, civil sources said.

The TNA’s Jaffna district parliamentarians and the UNP MP and Minister, Mr. T.Maheswaran, have extended their support for the success of the Pongu Thamil event, sources said.

Shops, schools, government offices and other institutions will be closed down on Friday, enabling students, government servants and others to participate in the event, sources said

Meanwhile, members of the public burnt hundreds of pamphlets printed and distributed by the paramilitary group, Eelam Peoples Democratic party (EPDP), against holding the Pongu Thamil celebration, sources said.

A group of persons surrounded several EPDP members at the Ariyakulam junction in Jaffna town when they were distributing these pamphlets. Pamphlets were forcibly removed from them and were burnt down in the junction, sources said.

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