2 abducted, youth reported missing in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 August 2007, 06:50 GMT]
Unidentified armed men in a white van and on motorcycles forcibly abducted Sunday night two persons in two separate incidents in Koapay and Kantharmadam, in Jaffna respectively, according to complaints made by family members to Jaffna Human Rights commission (HRC) office. Meanwhile, family members of a youth from Chu'n'naakam in Jaffna complained to the HRC that the youth had not returned home after going to collect his National Identity Card (NIC) confiscated by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) troopers Saturday.

A young family man and the father of one child, Markandu Chandrakumar, 22, from Koapaay north, was the person abducted in the first abduction Sunday night at his house.

The armed abductors who came in a white van and motor cycles assaulted Chandrakumar's family members and forcibly took him away.

In the second abduction Sunday night, armed men in a white van forcibly took away Maharasa Raveenthiran, 29, from his house at Madam Road, Kantharmadam.

The youth reported missing is Sritharan Tharshanan, 21, a resident of Kantharoadai in Chu'n'naakam.

SLA troopers had confiscated Tharshanan's NIC Saturday directing him to collect it from the nearest SLA camp. Tharshnanan, leaving home Sunday to Chu'n'naakam to collect his NIC, is reported missing since then, his family members said in their complaint to HRC.

The complainants, in the above cases, said that they suspect SLA troopers and their allied armed paramilitary members to be in the background of the abductions and disappearance.

The alarming rise in the number of killings, abductions and forced disappearances, alleged to be carried out by SLA and its collaborating paramilitary members in Jaffna peninsula, despite complaints made to the HRC, raises fear and insecurity among residents of the peninsula, civil society sources said.