SL Police reluctant to act against SLFP goons in Batticaloa

Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, a former Tiger commander turned paramilitary operative of the occupying Sinhala military in 2004, has illegally seized 25 acres of farmlands that belong to 16 private landowners at Thadaa'nai in Pearillaa-ve'li of Koa'ra'laippattu South (Kiraan) Division and transferred the lands to his sister, the affected landowners complain. The SL Police is not prepared to act against the encroachers, the landowners said. Mr Muralitharan who became a deputy minister in Mahinda Rajapaksa's cabinet in 2009 and later joined Rajapaksa's SLFP, has appointed his sister as the head of SLFP Women Wing in Batticaloa.

Muralitharan's sister and a gang led by Karuna's paramilitary associate ‘Saththiyan’ have threatened to knife the landowners if they continued to engage in farming in the lands that have been illegally seized by Mr Muralitharan's family.

While the Agrarian Service Department at Kiraan has confirmed the ownership of the lands to its rightful landowners, Karuna paramilitary is making claims to the lands saying the lands constituted an LTTE-run farm in the past.

The landowners say they had allowed the LTTE to operate the farm in the past, as it was a community farming initiative that benefited the landowners and the larger society. That doesn't give a renegade commander any exclusive rights to claim it as his family property, they said.

The LTTE operated farm was at 115 acres and consisted of lands belonging to 32 families, civil sources in the division said. Karuna group is attempting to fence off 25 acres of these lands.

The landowners, affected by floods during monsoon rains, say they also want to convert a portion of the upper-lying farmlands for residential purposes.