The Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission says that it received 40 complaints of human rights abuses in Jaffna in October. A number of cordon and search operations were conducted in late October. Soldiers shot and injured a woman on 9 October near Tellippalai. Six people were killed by the Army at Aruguveli near Periyativu Island south of Chavakachcheri. Reports say four of them were civilians. On 25 October, nine people arrested and three, including Jaffna University student Selvanayakam Suganthan, were detained.
The Tigers continued to infiltrate the Army-controlled peninsula and pressurize the local administration. LTTE’s Pistol Group shot dead a soldier on Temple Road in Jaffna town on 7 October. Following a LTTE grenade attack in mid-October in Jaffna town, the Army shot dead a suspected Tiger and wounded a bakery owner. The bodies of four young men and a woman were handed over to the Jaffna hospital on 16 October. The police say they were Tiger cadre killed in a clash a day earlier at Kodikamam.
Jaffna cooperative union manager DR Premalal was shot dead in the town on 27 October. The security forces believe that LTTE’s Pistol Group which carries out selective assassinations was responsible for the killing. In mid-October, seven bodies, believed to be Sea Tigers’, washed shore in the Jaffna islands.
The Jaffna hospitals continue to suffer without specialists. Doctors in the south appointed to serve in Jaffna are reluctant to go and some have applied for medical leave. Reports say Health minister Nimal Siripala de Silva has appointed a committee to enquire into the issue. In early October, three women died during childbirth in the Jaffna general hospital.