SL State reinforces stringent police registration of residents in Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 May 2018, 14:09 GMT]
The SL Police in Colombo has started to demand registration of residents in the city as it was practising during the times of war. Forms are being distributed to register the details of the chief occupant of each household under the different divisional secretariats with Tamil populations. All other occupants in the houses are instructed to record their permanent addresses and details such as their relationship to the chief occupant. Similarly, there are separate entries for domestic assistants, the sources in Colombo said. Citing the SL Police Ordinance - Section 76, police officials are instructing the chief occupants of the households to report any change with updating the details at the nearest police station.

The latest move seems to be a reaction coming from the mind of hostile SL Police, especially after the Mu'l'livaaykkaal Tamil Genocide Remembrance marked in the North this year, commented Social activist and a well-known Tamil physician Dr Murali Vallipuranathan.

Through this act, the SL authorities are setting the perception of the Sinhala masses as to how they should regard the Tamils residing in Colombo and its suburb, he said.

The SL authorities perceived every Tamil who was residing in Colombo as a potential host providing safe havens for infiltrating LTTE fighters during the times of war.

Some of those who registered themselves through such forms in the past were subjected to enforced disappearances.

With this background in mind, the latest move coming from the SL authorities was raising alarming concerns of the security of the Tamils who are residing in Colombo, Vallipuranathan said.

Such harassment could also be a tactic of social manoeuvring as it seeks to divert the attention of the average Sinhala people from the real economic problems they are facing, the physician further commented.



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