While news reports from the East earlier this week said that the Sri Lanka Army in Batticaloa has been harassing the families of former LTTE members, including those who had left the movement 20 years ago, reports from different areas in the Jaffna peninsula indicate that the SL military operated ‘grease devils’ and ‘abduction units’ in the peninsula have been increasingly targeting uprooted families from Vanni,
who have settled themselves in the Jaffna peninsula after the Vanni war. Amidst the tension and chaos created by ‘grease devils’, reports of children being abducted are on the increase, civil activists in the peninsula said.
While the adults were being targeted by ‘grease devils’, abductors from the South roaming in Jaffna were taking away their children through A9 road to South where children are exploited as labourers and sex workers.
Some of the families settled in Jaffna from Vanni have opted to return to Vanni following the scare that they were being targeted.
Last week, SL ‘grease devils’ assaulted a youth displaced from Vanni and residing with his family in Eazhaalai West in Valikaamam. The wounded youth was admitted to Thellippaazhai hospital and returned home Wednesday this week. However, within few hours of his return, the SL ‘grease devils’ who appeared again at his house around 7:30 p.m. attempted to attack him again. The attackers left the scene as public gathered at the site confronting the violent intruders.
In the meantime, a male from Eezhaalai was released on bail after being charged by the Sri Lankan police for alleged dissemination of posters against the Sri Lankan military establishment.
However, informed sources said that the SL Police arrested the 31-year-old male, Selvarajah Selvakrishan, while he was removing a poster from the wall of the village community centre. Deprived of job opportunities, Mr Selvakrishnan was working for the community centre in cleaning and closing the centre during the nights, informed sources said.
The anonymous poster issued in the name of ‘The Movement for the Protection of Tamil Nation’, which appeared in Jaffna earlier this week blamed the SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as responsible for the ‘grease devil’ attacks on Tamils. The poster had been mailed to media and was also seen pasted on walls in some places.
In the meantime, Douglas Devananda’s EPDP was harassing the people of Naavaanthu’rai to withdraw the fundamental rights cases filed against the Sri Lankan forces that assaulted them after providing security to the ‘grease devil’ attackers who were being chased by the residents.