Jaffna student beaten up on suspicion

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 December 2000, 17:12 GMT]
The parents of a Jaffna school boy, Sothiraj Nishanthan,17, alleged Wednesday that their son was abducted and tortured by a person suspected to be an intelligence operative working for the Sri Lanka army. The boy was admitted to the Jaffna Teaching Hospital for treatment with severe contusions on Tuesday 12 december.

According to the complaint lodged by Nishanthan's parents with the Human Rights Commission in Jaffna the boy was arrested by an armed person at Thirunelvely near Jaffna town on 28 November and had been detained in a house in the area where he had been severely assaulted till 12 midnight that day. He was later handed over to Sri Lanka Army camp at Uduvil.

The boy's parents said the army handed over Nishanthan to them the following day but did not investigate the matter.

Nishanthan said that his abductor had questioned him whether he had any connections with the Liberation Tigers.

Nishanthan is a GCE Advance Level student at Muthuthamby Maha Vidyalayam in Thirunelvely.