A Tamil woman bound for Vavuniya was arrested at the bus stand. Security in the run-up to the Sinhala-Tamil New Year on 14 April was tightened in Kandy and Kurunegala districts. Ten Tamil students from Peradeniya University, three miles south-west of Kandy, were taken into custody.
Sri Lanka’s Army Commander Srilal Weerasooriya, warned in late April of disciplinary action against soldiers involved in harassment of people at military checkpoints and during search operations. Lt. Gen. Weerasooriya’s warning followed a complaint by the Committee of Inquiry into Undue Arrest and Detention (CIUAD) that Tamil civilians were continuing to be harshly treated.
On the night of 26 March, 43 Tamils were arrested at a lodge on Dickman’s Road in Bambalapitiya, a suburb of Colombo. Six were detained and others were released. The CIUAD ordered the officer-in-charge of Bambalapitiya police station to submit explanations for arresting three women in the lodge without the presence of a female police officer. The CIUAD is dissatisfied with the police explanation that there were no women officers in Bambalapitiya police station at the time. The police claim that the arrests were made after a parcel containing explosives was thrown from the lodge into a nearby drain.
Political party NSSP says many Tamil youths are in detention for over four years without trial and proper action has not been taken despite a number of representations to the government. Nine detainees in Kalutara prison ended their protest fast on 1 April after they were promised again that their cases will be disposed of quickly.
S Nadesapillai, currently detained in Kalutara prison, alleges in a fundamental rights application to the Supreme Court that following his arrest in Amparai on 9 December last year, a confession was extracted from him under torture. V Kulaveerasingham says his signature was obtained on a statement under duress, after arrest in Amparai on 17 December.
A bomb damaged an electricity installation in Colombo’s Pettah suburb in early April. Over 20 Tamils were detained. Some 200 Tamils were arrested in Pettah lodges on 23 April and 27 were detained. A Batticaloa woman, arrested in a Colombo lodge in early April, is being interrogated at the Fourth Floor of the police headquarters, notorious for torture. Police suspect that she had links with an LTTE cadre now in custody.
The CIUAD says that Rajendran Amirtharaj, who was reported missing after being deported from Germany, is currently in detention at Welikada prison in Colombo.