Mr Chandrasekaran says that in many cases, police officers are misusing powers under the PTA for their own benefit, such as bribery. In Maskeliya, the police arrested a number of Tamil youths accusing them of possessing explosives, whereas they had only animal feed at their homes. In early September, the Western Provincial Council adopted a resolution urging the government to take effective measures to file action against those in detention or release them.
In August, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed concern over restrictions placed on civil and political rights under the PTA and Emergency regulations and its allegedly discriminate application with regard to the Tamils. Murugesu Valliammai, 70, has complained to the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission (HRC) that her son M Mathiyalagan, who was arrested on 21 June 1990 in Batticaloa’s Karaitivu refugee camp by the police Special Task Force, is currently held at Mullegama Army camp.
On 1 September, 18 young Tamils were taken into custody at Thillaiyady in Puttalam District. Fourteen Tamil men and women were arrested in Galle town on 29 September in a cordon and search operation. The security forces searched Kotahena, Pettah, Maradana and Slave Island suburbs in Colombo on the same day and rounded up 52 Tamils. Thirty three were detained.
Police say they found a suicide kit and a bomb in the capital’s Vihara Mahadevi Park on 29 September. Seven Tamil youths, including N T Kumaran, were arrested by police in this connection.
The police arrested five Sinhalese in Bambalapitiya suburb in mid-September who had posed as officers of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) using forged identity cards. Police say they had been robbing Tamil people arriving in Colombo from the north-east.
Hill Country Tamils have expressed fear over the rape of young women. In the last two months at least three women have been raped and murdered. Umadevi of Imbulpitiya Estate in Nawalapitiya was abducted, raped and killed on 12 September. Thousands of plantation workers in Nawalapitiya staged a strike on 28 September protesting against inaction by the police.
Sixteen year-old Tamil student Sita was abducted by two men on 12 September and raped. The Asian Human Rights Commission says that when the case was heard on 28 September, the police appeared to support the perpetrators and failed to inform the court that she was a student from a poor family.