2ND LEAD (Adds details)

Student shot dead in Jaffna, tension prevails

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 February 2007, 11:29 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers shot dead a final year Art faculty student of Jaffna University Sunday around 6:30 p.m close to the SLA 52-4 Brigade Head Quarters and near his house in Iyattalai in Varani in Thenmaradchi region. Black flags were flown in the Jaffna University which was reopened Monday for studies after nearly six months. SLA soldiers were deployed around the University premises as the students observed a remembrance event paying homage to the dead student at Kailasapthy stadium in the Jaffna University.

Krishnan Kamalathas 24, from Iyattalai in Thenmaradchi region was shot dead while he was going towards a private tutory to teach classes.

Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU) in a statement to the press said that the killing of their fellow student by the Sri Lankan soldiers, a day before the long-awaited opening of the University, was deliberate, and intended to disrupt the smooth functioning of the University.

The statement further said that the educational authorities should show their bona-fides of their genuine concern in the Jaffna student education by taking urgent steps to identify and prosecute the killers.

Jaffna University which had remained closed for the last six months since the eruption of clashes between the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in August 2006, reopened Monday.

The reopening event of the Jaffna University was held in a low key, affected by the killing of Kamalathas.

More than 60% of the students, mainly from the peninsula, were present at the Jaffna University Monday while more than 250 outstation students were not able to attend due to the SLA closure of the A9 route.

The affected outstation students were still waiting for transport arrangment to Jaffna peninsula after having registered their names in the list of passengers to Jaffna.



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