Most of the arrested are released within 48 hours, but observers say that this does not negate the fact that the round-ups are arbitrary. Following a bomb explosion in Pettah suburb on 16 May, over 50 Tamil workers in shops on Sea Street were detained. Reports say security in the capital was strengthened in late May after a six-member Tiger hit squad infiltrated the city.
Arrests were also carried out in the Hill Country. Nine people were taken into custody in Matale town on 7 May. The following day, six people in Hantane, south of Kandy, were arrested and a Tamil woman was detained. The Kandy police searched 150 houses in Mahiyawa suburb on 27 May and arrested five Tamils and three Muslims.
There is concern over attempts by the police to compile information about Tamil teachers in the Hill Country. Bogawantalawa teacher T Arutchelvam and Hatton Highlands College teacher Sivanantharajah are in detention for the last six months. On 24 May, the Supreme Court ordered the release of four traders from Ragala, eight miles north-east of Nuwara Eliya, arrested in November last year without proper cause.
Three Tamil detainees in Kalutara prison, 25 miles south of Colombo, began a hunger strike on 7 May demanding trial or release. Kalutara prisoners have staged many protests against their prolonged detention. Batticaloa resident Sabaratnam Parameswaran, 26, arrested in 1996 remains in Kalutara prison for the last 29 months without trial.
Kalutara detainee Rev. Anthony Alexander says that he suffered torture at a police station after his arrest in March 1998 and a confession was extracted from him. Jaffna resident M Balendra, 25, who had been detained in Kalutara for several years without trial, died in a Colombo hospital on 17 May. Prisons Commissioner P Baskaralingam says an enquiry into his death is underway.
Jaffna resident and widow Satkunam Indrani, currently in Colombo’s Welikada prison, says in a fundamental rights application to the Supreme Court that she was arrested on 26 March when she came to the capital for medical treatment. She has not been informed of the reasons for the arrest.
P Sivasubramaniam, arrested in Batticaloa in June 1997 was released by a High Court in late May. The Judicial Medical Officer, in his evidence said that Mr Sivasubramaniam had suffered torture. There are 30 torture scars on his body and a finger had been cut off.