EPDP resumes harassment against families of Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 August 2019, 22:43 GMT]
Douglas Devananda, the leader of the paramilitary-cum-political party, Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), has again resorted to harassment against the mothers of Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the military of genocidal Sri Lanka and his EPDP outfit. Mr Devananda was an SL minister during the regimes of Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa. The SL military deployed his group to abduct Tamil activists, journalists and those who were working with the LTTE. Recently, he told the press that he had lodged a complaint with the SL Police in Colombo against the open and public statements made by Mrs Mariasuresh Easwary, the wife of a person reported missing at the hands of the SL military. Mrs Easwary, who heads the district organisation of missing persons in Mullaith-theevu, was making the open allegation on behalf of the members of her organisation.



In the meantime, EPDP personnel have started to harass the mothers and wives of the missing persons by making threatening phone calls, the mothers in the district said.

Mrs Kanakaranjai Yogarajah, who coordinates the eight district organisations across the North and East also said that the conduct of Mr Devananda was connected to the elections.

“However Mr Devananda’s statement to media in itself is a threat against us. He demands evidence from the mothers alleging his group for involvement in the abductions in the past. He doesn’t need any proof from us while he must have fully aware of the evidence himself about the activities of his group,” Mrs Kanakaranjini told media in Jaffna.

Mr Devananda was unable to file any case against Mrs Wijeyakala Maheswaran, a Tamil minister representing the UNP when she made the same allegations face to face against him in the SL Parliament, Kanakaranjini pointed out.

The mothers also questioned why Mr Devananda chose to file the case in Colombo instead of doing it in the North where the allegations were made.

The latest controversy has come at a time when the district organisations of the missing persons have called for a big protest on the international day of missing persons on 30 August on Friday at Oamanthai in North and at Tharavai Pi'l'liaiyaar temple in Ampaa'rai in the East.

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