Muslim fisherman shot by Police

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 December 1997, 23:59 GMT]
A member of the LTTE shot dead in the Batticaloa lagoon off Kattankudy early morning today around 5.15 a.m. turned out to be a poor Muslim fisherman when the body was identified later in the morning by his family. Kattankudy is an economically booming and densely populated Muslim town, four miles south of Batticaloa.

The Kattankudy Police claimed this morning that one of its sentries on the shore of the lagoon had shot dead a member of the Liberation Tigers who had tried to paddle towards the coast in a fishing boat.

The dead man was identified as Mohammed Akram 37, a poor lagoon fisherman, as soon as his body was brought ashore.

The dead man is a relative of some armed Muslim home guards working with the Police in Kattankudy. His body was brought to the Batticaloa hospital later this morning.

Hospital sources said that the inquest will produce a verdict in which it will invariably be stated that the man was shot dead by unidentified persons.

The Kattankudy Police, according to the hospital sources, gives evidence at inquests on such deaths that unidentified persons were responsible for the killings to help the next of kin secure compensation.

If it is stated at an inquest into sudden deaths that a person was killed by the Sri Lankan security forces, the next of kin of a victim will not be deemed eligible for government compensation.

Later on, however, the 'unidentified persons' in the Police records are inevitably interpreted as Liberation Tigers they said. This practice does not apply to the Tamils the sources added.