Ex-councillor: Poverty-stricken Tamils at receiving end of SL military brutality in North

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 June 2020, 23:11 GMT]
The occupying SL Army fired gunshots at 24-year-old Tamil man at a close distance between 25 and 50 meters distance on Saturday, says former civic councillor Sutharsing Vijayakanth, who is the general secretary of Progressive Tamil National Party. The soldiers fired when the victim, Ramakrishnan Nakarasa, was fleeing from the chasing SL Army after his motorbike was stuck in the sand. The four men, who were released on bail, witnessed the incident, he said after talking to them on Sunday. The SL Army was twisting facts on the episode in its report to the SL Police, Vijayakanth said. The SLA was claiming that it fired after the late Ramakrishnan had pulled down a soldier while riding a motorbike.



Ramakrishnan had joined the local sand mining group two weeks ago as he had lost his daily-wage job due to COVID-19.

The slain youth was the eldest son and one of the two breadwinners of a low-income family.

His mother is psychologically ill, and his father was struggling to cope with low-income work. Ramakrishnan's younger brother and two sisters are going to be affected by the loss of their eldest brother, he said.

The low-income families, unable to sustain their livelihoods, turn to illegal sand mining.

The SL military has taken the laws into its hands with impunity and resorts to violence against Tamil youth in the name of enforcing the law, Mr Sutharsing told TamilNet on Sunday.

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