Scenes From Jaffna: How Rooted Is The Quiet?

By N. Logathayalan –MAY 2, 2019

Recall the Colombo Telegraph story I reported on10 Sept. 2018 of a Tamil family abused by the Police Officer-in-Charge (OIC) Kanakarayankulam named Thamintha Sinthu taking the side of a Muslim trader to whom they had leased their land. The trader had opened an eating house named Dawood Restaurant on the leased land. When the landowner Vasanthakumar refused to renew the lease upon its expiry, and asked the trader to vacate, the OIC Thamintha Sinthu arrested Vasanthakumr, ripped off Mrs. Vasanthakumar’s dress  in public space and brutally assaulted their two children who were hospitalized as a result.

VIP Status for Muslim with Bombs at the Kanakarayankulam Police Station

Nothing happened to the OIC Thamintha Sinthu despite widespread exposure by the press and complaints by MPs including an in-person complaint by Member of Parliament Charles Nirmalanathan to the Deputy Inspector General of Police  Roshan Fernando. I accompanied the MP at the time.

Today (1 May) news has been received that bombs on 30 April had been discovered  in Dawood Restaurant, and that the Muslim owner is locked up in the Police Station. But thanks to the OIC’s kindness, he is getting VIP treatment in the police station lock-up. Rather unusually, Dawood has been provided with a mat, a hot-water bottle with hot water and a pillow as seen pictured here. In contrast Tamil prisoners in the past have complained of losing their sarong and being kissed in the night by homosexual prisoners on drugs charges at Police Stations, and of being beaten by a baton at Welikada for asking for food for a sick fellow-prisoner — not to mention the hundreds who have been tortured as in the famous case in California concerning our former Defence Secretary.

The police who have always been a law unto. During the search of the Jaffna Mosque, Muslims elders who attended the inter-religious meeting (at the Roman Catholic Church’s Catechetical Institute in Jaffna) on the Easter Day Bombings, bitterly complained about 

1. Finding only tea at the mosque, the angry military was abusive of the Mosque’s Manager and Moulavi before the press as if they were criminals. As the Manager put it, they were loaded on jeeps and the press invited to photograph them. They feel humiliated.

Manager and Moulavi of the Jaffna Mosque

2. The students who stayed at the Mosque (who had fled Jaffna after locking up their rooms) having their room-door locks broken up by the army to enter and search. 

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