Amongst the arrested area a Tamil widow, Balendran Jeyakumari, and her 13-year-old daughter Vibhooshika, at the village of Dharmapuram in northern Kilinochchi. They are charged with “harbouring an ex-LTTE” cadre. Hundreds of soldiers and police cordoned off the area around her home, claiming they were searching for a “terrorist.”
After the police terrorist investigation division (TID) questioned the mother and her daughter all night, the government detained Jeyakumari at the Boosa prison camp in the south of the island, under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Jeyakumari’s daughter was placed under the control of the Child Protection Bureau—effectively also detained.
The PTA allows the defence secretary to detain people for up to 18 months without trial. Any “confessions” extracted from detainees can be used against them. Hundreds of Tamil political prisoners have been detained for years at Boosa as “LTTE suspects”, without charge or trial.
Jeyakumari’s “offence” has been to campaign for the release of her 15-year-old son, who surrendered to the army in May 2009.
Last Sunday evening, the TID arrested Ruky Fernando of INFORM, a human rights group, and a Catholic priest, Praveen Mahesan, from the Peace and Reconciliation Center in Kilinochchi. They had sought to investigate the circumstances of the arrest of Jeyakumari and her daughter.
Police spokesman Superintendent Ajith Rohana claimed: “The two suspects were arrested under provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act for trying to cause communal disharmony and disturbance.” He did not explain how investigating the detention of Jeyakumari and her daughter would “cause communal disharmony and disturbance.”
The police claimed that a TID team investigating the distribution of handbills in the north traced an ex-LTTE cadre named Gobi, who escaped from a Vavuniya detention camp at the end of the war. The police alleged that he was hiding in Jeyakumari’s house, but fled and shot at an unnamed police officer when police tried to arrest him.
The military also claimed to have found a metal detector in the house. Hundreds of soldiers and police cordoned off the area supposedly to apprehend the ex-LTTE cadre, but did not find him. Police and army spokesmen did not explain how such as escape could occur when military, police and intelligence personnel were watching every nook and corner.
Likewise, the military claims that “Gobi” had escaped nearly five years ago from a heavily-guarded military-run detention centre, which is cordoned off and fenced with barbed wire. Hundreds of thousands of Tamils were detained there for years, before eventually being “resettled”.
Jeyakumari’s lawyer rejected the police claim. Several similar arrests of Tamils have been reported from the north and east.
Jeyakumari’s first son was shot dead while he was coming from school during the war. Her second son was killed in a military attack during the final days of the war. Her third son surrendered to the army, after earlier being conscripted by the LTTE.
She has participated in many protest campaigns demanding the release of political prisoners and information about those who have disappeared.
Rajapakse’s government, however, contends that remnants of the LTTE still function in the north, and therefore justifies the wave of arrests of supposed “terrorists.”
— Poreg desk with inputs from Athiyan Silva and S. Jayanth
