Seven civilians injured in SLA shelling in Eravur

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 May 2006, 11:59 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) opened fire and launched shells on Ward 5, a thickly populated Tamil residential area in Eravur in Baticaloa district around 11:45 p.m Saturday night wounding seven civilians. Two of them, seriously injured, were rushed to the Eravur hospital, said sources from Eravur. This attack on civilians followed a mortar attack on the police sentry post located behind Eravur police station by unidentified men on the same night around 11.15 p.m. Shells were fired by the SLA and police for more than thirty minutes, injuring civilians and damaging six houses.

SLA and the police resumed their attack on the civilians at 1:00 a.m Sunday and continued for more than 45 minutes, said the sources.

Ms. Thambyappa Maheswary, 55, of Eravur hospital and Chandran Sangeetha 6, student of Eravur Vipulananda Vidyalayam are the two seriously injured admitted to Batticaloa hospital, said the sources.

The SLA and the police rounding up and searching Ward 5 arrested six persons, Amirthalingam Suresh, 20, a mason, Subramaniam Sasikumar, 24, Cithravel Balachandran, 23, Muthulingam Vasanthan, 22, Chellappa Sutharsan, 19, and Yogarajah Kajendran, 19. These were released after inquiries, said the police.

Meanwhile, Eravur police alleged that the Liberation Tigers of Tamils Eelam (LTTE) launched the two attacks, one at 11.15 p.m Saturday and the next at 1 a.m Sunday.

Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission team visited the attacked area Sunday around 10 a.m and inspected the site.