The security forces continue to demand proof of registration outside their homes against the Attorney General’s advice that people need not carry the registration document when travelling. The police are also expecting the registration to be renewed every month. Tenants are being forced to visit police stations every month with their National Identity Cards. At police stations, Tamils are expected to wait for many hours and sometimes they are asked to return the next day. Many permanent residents of the capital have also been ordered by police to follow this procedure. Provincial councillor M Sivagnanam has complained to the CIUAH that police in Rattota area are demanding photographs of all family members for registration.
The security forces carried out cordon and search operations in Wattala and Elakanda, south of Negombo, on 16 February and rounded-up 450 Tamils. Seventeen of them were detained after interrogation. The police arrested 15 Tamils in Colombo’s Wellawatte suburb on 21 February. They were returning from a temple after prayers in connection with the Hindu Mahasivarathiri festival. The police also detained 17 Tamil youths from the north-east, who were scheduled to leave for employment abroad, in Negombo on 24 February.
Prolonged detentions without charge or trial continue to cause concern. Jaffna resident Sivarajah Sutharsan was released by court in late February. He had been detained at Kalutara prison for two years without trial. Meanwhile, press reports say that 75 Tamil detainees in Kalutara prison were transferred to Boossa detention centre in Galle District, 40 miles further south, allegedly for security reasons. The Boossa detention centre has been notorious in the past for torture and ill-treatment of Tamil detainees and was closed after protests.
Thambirajah Yogarajah who was arrested at Anuradhapura while travelling from Colombo to Vavuniya has disappeared. The police have denied his arrest. Reports say that 128 Tamils, arrested under the Immigrants and Emigrants Act for attempting to leave the country illegally are currently in Negombo prison and Colombo’s Welikada prison without bail. Under the law, the Magistrates Court has no jurisdiction to grant bail while the case continues. In mid-February, 62 detainees applied to the Colombo High Court for bail.