During the first two weeks of October, over 2,000 Tamils were rounded-up in the Colombo suburbs of Narahenpita, Kotahena, Wellawatte and Grandpass and 100 were detained. Colombo region DIG TN de Silva says some of those detained did not have police registration or permits to enter Colombo.
In mid-October, the Committee of Inquiry into Undue Arrest and Harassment (CIUAH) indicated that it would investigate the mass arrest of Tamils. The CIUAH, headed by Culture minister Lakshman Jayakody was established in July 1998, following complaints of security force harassment of the Tamil community in Colombo and other southern areas.
The police say LTTE cadre continue to infiltrate Colombo. Two electricity transformers and two shops at Sea Street in the Pettah commercial district were damaged by a bomb on 5 October. Policemen found another bomb near an electricity transformer in Pettah in mid October. Two bombs exploded at Pettah bus station on 19 October wounding two policemen.
Tamil MP R Yogarajan complained to the CIUAH that soldiers and policemen who arrested 60 Tamils on Armour Street in Pettah on 15 October failed to identify themselves and breached a CIUAH directive that debars demanding proof of police registration from the people.
Following the complaint, MP Yogarajan was questioned by the police, accused of using his influence to release six LTTE suspects from custody. Mr Yogarajan says that they had been arrested in the streets without any evidence of links with the Tigers.
At a meeting arranged by the CIUAH with senior police officers in early October, MPs pointed out that the police were not observing, among others, the following directives on police registration:
1) Photographs of applicants should not be demanded; 2) all members of the family should not be asked to come to the police station; 3) people coming to the station for police registration should not be finger-printed; 4) the police should not demand a Grama Sevaka (Village Headman) certificate; 5) the police should not limit the period of stay in Colombo.
Seventy eight people were rounded-up in the Hill Country after a bomb damaged railway lines at Nanu Oya, three miles south-west at Nuwara Eliya, on 2 October. Seventy were later released. The surrounding tea estates were searched and another 14 Plantation Tamils detained. A day earlier, 25 Tamils were taken into custody at Dambulla, 40 miles north of Kandy.