The police closed down three Kotahena lodges, evicting 600 Tamils from north-east Sri Lanka. EPDP leader Douglas Devananda, who found them temporary accommodation, condemned the police action as arbitrary and inhuman. Evicted couple Thambithurai and Thavamani came from Jaffna to find their son, arrested eight months earlier in a Colombo lodge.
According to Colombo newspapers security for senior government leaders, including Foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar has been strengthened fearing LTTE suicide attacks. Reports also say 24 Tigers planning to blow-up Kelaniya bridge in north-west Colombo were arrested in Vavuniya.
Tamil parties continue to complain about harassment. Several Tamils visiting the independence exhibition at the Bandaranaike Conference Hall were taken into custody. Colombo newspaper Sunday Times reports about Joubert Gnanamuthu, arrested at a checkpoint and locked-up without food or water for many hours before being produced in courts. The police had handed over his identity card to a lawyer who insisted on representing him for Rs 1,500.
Observers say corrupt police officers earn large sums of money by detaining Tamils. A Tamil in Colombo told the Sri Lanka Monitor that a businessman relative arrested twice in the course of two months paid Rs 25,000 on each occasion to the police. Over 100 lawyers say in a petition that Tamil attorney S Selvagunapalan, working for a human rights NGO, was arrested on 10 February despite producing his identity card and humiliated at a police station.
Colombo Tamil residents complain that police are photographing them during night search operations. EPDP leader Douglas Devananda says in a letter to President Chandrika that photographing women in their night dress is humiliating and degrading and has called for immediate end to the practice.
Meanwhile, 190 Sri Lankans, including 178 Tamils, deported from Africa’s Senegal were taken into custody on 25 February at Colombo airport. International refugee agency UNHCR says that police detention is to identify those with LTTE links, send a public message that there should be no attempt to leave Sri Lanka illegally and find the organisers of refugee moves. UNHCR confirms that all were released on bail under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and ordered to appear in courts in May.