2ND LEAD (Correction)

Body found buried in Kaithady

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 June 2006, 17:13 GMT]
A body in decomposed state was found buried Wednesday near the site where the dead body of the Hindu priest was discovered in Kaithady a sub-division of Jaffna district which is under the full control of the 52nd division of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) sources in Jaffna said. The body was discovered in shallow grave in the waste land 200 meters away from A9 highway near Kaithady bridge. Evidence of a mass grave also found, said sources in Jaffna. The body has been sent to Jaffna Hospital for identification, sources added.

Chavakachcheri Magistrate, Mr. Annalingam Premshankar, inspected the said site Wednesday accompanied by officials of Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission (SLHRC), Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and a legal medical officer, civil society sources said.

Search investigations carried out under the supervision of the Magistrate and other officers led to one body being recovered and evidence of two more bodies buried near by was found, sources said.

The dead body recovered confirms earlier suspicions of Kaithady residents who have heard cries of men and women during night times from the area. Residents allege that disappeared men and women were tortured, and subsequently killed and buried in this particular SLA camp premises.

Kopay wasteland where the dead bodies were recovered and the Chemmani mass graves of 1996- 97 are directly linked by a land mass, which separates Valigamam and Thenmaradchchy with Chemmani to the north and Kopay to the south.

More than a hundred Tamil young men and women have disappeared in the Jaffna peninsula alone, civil society sources in Jaffna said. 61 one of these persons have been reported missing in December 2005 and the rest before the February Geneva Talks. Majority of these had disappeared after being arrested by the SLA according to complaints registered by their relatives, according to Jaffna Human Rights Commission officials.