Jaffna Chavakachcheri resident Kulasingham Vimala says in a fundamental rights application to the Supreme Court that after her arrest in November 1996 in a Colombo Hindu temple, she was tortured by police at the Crimes Detection Bureau (CDB). Ms Vimala had arrived in Colombo after obtaining a travel permit from the military in Jaffna.
Security forces believe that LTTE cadre have infiltrated Colombo and other southern areas. Police arrested a Tiger member at Mattakkuliya in Colombo on 20 October. According to the police, he had been regularly transporting Tamils from the north-east in a van into Colombo city. Four passengers in his van were also detained.
Answering questions from Tamils, on Rupavahini TV on 26 October, President Chandrika said that she was upset by excesses of the security forces in relation to arrest of Tamils. She emphasised that security measures in Colombo are necessary as long as the LTTE threat to the capital remains. It is natural, she said, that Tamil people are harassed more than the others, because the LTTE uses the Tamils for carrying out attacks.
President Chandrika further stated that police officers unnecessarily harassed Tamil people during interrogation and suggested that the opposition party UNP was behind the police officers’ actions. She also reiterated her earlier statement about police bribes and said that some police officers demanded as much as Rs 25,000 from Tamil detainees for release from custody. The President assured that she had spent many hours with senior police officers formulating systems to control the abuse.
Reports say a number of Tamils in Kalutara, 25 miles south of Colombo, were taken into custody in security sweeps, before the presidential mobile service scheduled in the town in early October. Three members of a family were detained by police in Matale in the Hill Country, before President Chandrika’s visit to the area.
In October, three Hill Country youths, currently detained in Badulla prison, filed cases in the Supreme Court claiming breach of their fundamental rights by the security forces. Kandapola resident Sinnathamby Thamilchelvan says that he was severely tortured by police following his arrest in January. A confession had been extracted from him in July under threat of torture.