Tamils unify to mark Thileepan Remembrance, brave Colombo's suppression of memorialisation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 September 2020, 12:05 GMT]
Colombo's widespread attempts through SL judiciary, Police and military covering all the potential memorial sites and the Maaveerar square within the University of Jaffna, didn't manage to curb Eezham Tamils, their grassroots activists and politicians from marking the collective memorialisation events on Saturday on the occasion of 33rd commemoration of Lt Col Thileepan. Jaffna University students took part in three events in Jaffna, Chaavakachcheari and Vavuniyaa North. All mainstream Tamil parties doing politics on Tamil nationalist platform were brought together by the pressure from Tamil media, grassroots activists and the students who were responding to the suppression coming from Colombo. All Tamil dailies published in the Tamil homeland gave prominence to Thileepan Remembrance and highlighted Colombo's harassment against the collective memorialisation events.



SL Police was giving violent postures against the students in Jaffna and deployed personnel in large numbers blocking students from accessing the premises. However, the students managed to reach Maaveerar Square within the Jaffna campus and proceeded with their tribute.

At the same time, they had dispatched a group of students to accompany the joint fast event at Chaavakachcheari Sivan temple. Another group was sent to Vavuniyaa North to take part in the concluding feast of the disputed heritage hill-top of Vedukku-naa'ri.



The grassroots activists and politicians organised collective events also in other parts of the Tamil homeland in Vanni and the Eastern Province.

The SL Police was using Tamil ‘journalist-spies’ to detect where the collective events were being arranged and chased the activists by obtaining interim orders from various SL courts. However, they were not anticipating the joint fast event to be rapidly mobilised at Chaavakachcheari.

SL military and Police were harassing even the devotees who were going to Chelva-channathi temple in Tho'ndaimaan-aa'ru, Vadamaraadchi in Jaffna for ‘Puraddaathi-Saturday’ religious rites, thinking that they were mobilising to mark collective remembrance for Lt Col Thileepan.

However, Tamil devotees in Vanni were concluding their annual feast at the disputed heritage hill-top Vedukku-naa'ri in Vavuniyaa North coinciding with the conclusion of the fast, sending one of the 108 Pongkal pots to those who were completing their fast.



“The mobilisation successfully demonstrated to everyone the collective will of Tamil people to mark the Remembrance Day as well as their urge to unite the Tamil political parties,” Ms Sashikala Raviraj (ITAK), who formally concluded the fast, told TamilNet. The widow of TNA Jaffna District Parliamentarian Maamanithar Nadarasa Raviraj, who was assassinated in Colombo in November 2006, said it was auspicious to conclude the fast with Pongkal rice from Vedukku-naa'ri.









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