Police, SLA search for buried weapons in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 September 2010, 02:30 GMT]
Koappaay police, assisted by hundreds of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers, engaged in a search operation Sunday in a pond in the surroundings of a Pi’l’laiyaar temple located in Ka'l'liyang-kaadu in Jaffna claiming that a cache of weapons was buried in the pond. Though the search with the use of water pumps to drain out the water continued until evening no weapons were recovered. The Officer-in Charge of Koappaay police station said that some sources had informed of the weapons buried in the pond. He said the search will continue Monday.

The pond, used by local residents, is near Chanthirasekara Pi’l’laiyaar temple located in a barren land in Ka'l'liyang-kaadu Chemma’ni area.

The above area had been the place where clashes had occurred between SLA and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 1995.

SLA has been engaged in similar search operations in Jaffna peninsula for weapons claimed to be hidden.

More than 600 civilians, mostly young men and women, who were arrested by the Sri Lanka army in Jaffna during 1996-97, are believed to have been murdered and buried in Chemma’ni.

Despite many appeals and protests by the Missing Persons Guardian Association (MPGA) and other community organizations in Jaffna for several years, Governments of Sri Lanka had failed to conduct proper investigations to avoid implicating the security forces of the crime.