One more ‘Halo Trust’ employee abducted in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 January 2007, 23:32 GMT]
Unidentified gunmen traveling in white van abducted one more employee from the humanitarian de-mining organization of ‘Halo Trust’, an international non-governmental organization functions in Jaffna peninsula, Thursday night.

Subramaniam Parameswaran, 29, of Racca Road, Jaffna, was at home with his wife and two children when unidentified persons came in white van held his wife and children at gunpoint and abducted him forcefully, his wife, Esther Marilyn Parameswaran, told the officials of the Human Rights Commission, Jaffna branch.

So far, eight employees from ‘Halo Trust’ have been either killed or abducted and disappeared in Jaffna Peninsula.

The eighth abduction of a Halo Trust employee follows the last one, of a family man who was abducted from his house near Old Park Road, just 500 metres from the head quarters of Halo Trust.

Meanwhile, another demining employee of Danish Demining Organisation, an NGO in Jaffna peninsula, sought refugee with the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission (SLHRC) Jaffna office, saying that he fears death at the hands of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and the Tamil paramilitary cadres operating with it.

The young deminer, a resident on Palaly road in Punalikattuvan, working for the Danish organisation, said to the SLHRC Jaffna office, that on January 1, he and his friends going along Palaly road were chased by armed men on three motorcycles trying to shoot them. He had managed to escape while his friends had been caught and subjected to torture by those who had chased them. The young man further said to the SLHRC that he had gone underground from January 1 and had sought refuge now.

Two personnel of the Danish Demining Organization were abducted previously in Point Pedro. So far their abduction remains unsolved though the abduction had been reported to the police, Rights sources said.