Civilian beheaded in SLA reprisal

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 August 2000, 10:31 GMT]
Two civilians were killed in reprisal by Sri Lanka army troops around noon Wednesday following a fire-fight in Sithaandy, 24 kilometers north of Batticaloa. Soldiers of the Morokkoddaanchenai SLA camp beheaded one of the civilians, Arunasalam Santhiramohan, 20 and shot dead the other, identified as Thiyagarajah Gnanarajah, 29, father of four. The SLA has taken Santhiramohan's body to the Morokkoddaanchenai camp.

Eravur Police informed the Batticaloa district judge A.Viswanathan this afternoon that they had declined to accept a head of a person that the SLA had brought from Sithaandy following the fire-fight.

The Police had asked the SLA to bring the person's body as they required it for inquest and investigations.

Santhiramohan's body has not been released despite appeals by his grieving relatives who have gathered before the camp sources said this afternoon.

Thiyagarajah Gnanarajah was returning from work in Sithaandy when he was shot and killed by soldiers who had been in the fire-fight. He works as a toddy tapper in the village.

Santhiramohan was murdered while he was working in his paddy (rice) field at Manalpiddy behind the Sithaandy Murugan temple.

Two SLA soldiers were wounded in the fire-fight with the Liberation Tigers in Sithaandy around 11.30 a.m.