SLA fieldbike patrol near Naavat-kuzhi junction in Jaffna
The SL Police has detained two former LTTE members, one Ajanthan in Batticaloa in the East and one Sarvananthan in Ki'lilnochchi in the North.
Apart from the fact that they were involved in mobilising for the Heroes Day Remembrance on November 27, there was no evidence to connect them to the killings, legal sources in Batticaloa said. They are still detained.
Furthermore, the SL Police investigation squad has also recorded statements from at least twenty more ex-LTTE members.
However, the SL Police has no valid trace to connect the attack with the ex-LTTE members, the legal sources in Batticaloa further said.
War-crimes accused Special Task Force (STF), a full-fledged military commando unit administratively organised under the SL Police, is deployed everywhere the LTTE had its military bases in the past in Paduvaan-karai region of Batticaloa.
SL Police and STF commandos are checking the travellers in the streets as they did during the times of war.
Apart from street-harassment and checking, normalcy was highly disturbed in Kaddu-mu'rivu in Vaakarai as well as in Ka'luvang-kea'ni in Vavu'na-theevu as SL police commandos were carrying out cordon and search operations under the pretext of searching for weapons. The situation was also tense at Makizha-vedduvaan and Iluppai-adich-cheanai due to search operations.
The roads remain deserted after 6:00 p.m. in Paduvaan-karai in Batticaloa.
In the North, SL military intelligence was mobilising the so-called ‘Civil Security Division’ (CSD) personnel, who are former LTTE members kept as a slave workforce on military payroll, to stage proxy demonstrations condemning the incident in Batticaloa.
SL military has organised protests in Ki'linochchi, Mullaiththeevu and Vavuniyaa in the recent days.
The SL military intelligence officers are instructing ex-LTTE members to come to nearby SLA camps and ask them specifically to take part in protests and hand over appeals against the resurgence of violence. “The choice is either you take part in the rally to ensure your security or risk further harassment from the military,” a former LTTE member in Vavuniyaa said.
SL military-organised protest in Vavuniyaa on Saturday. Eezham Tamils, including ex-LTTE members, forced to stage protests against slaying of SL policemen in Batticaloa
The ex-LTTE member was among a group of people mobilised by the SLA 611 Brigade Headquarters at Eachchang-ku'lam in Vavuniyaa. They were instructed to march from Thavasiyaa-ku'lam Government Mixed School to the SLA Brigade headquarters and hand over an appeal to SL military commander as well as the police officer-in-charge of Eachchang-ku'lam.
A similar protest took place on Friday at Puthukkudiyiruppu in Mullaiththeevu.
Meanwhile, the SL military intelligence in Jaffna was waging a poster campaign as if the attack was a politically motivated one and was blaming Tamil diaspora as inciting such violence through ‘dollars’.
SL military psyops poster in Jaffna
The propaganda seems to be a political psyops as well as an attempt to keep the Sinhala military occupied with an alleged Tamil threat while the Sinhala political elite is locked in a political turmoil in the South, Tamil political observers in Jaffna said.
The Sinhala military stationed in Jaffna has also re-opened small cafés that it previously operated as a practice to facilitate intelligence operatives' contact surface with potential informants and the general public.
A poster photographed in Mullaiththeevu on Thursday. A small group known as Namal Rajapaksa's ‘youth wing’ were behind it, the residents said.
The protest in Ki'linochchi came after two similar demonstrations in the East. All of the participants were enslaved ‘Civil Security Division’ CSD personnel, who are on the payroll of the SL military and employed in farms operated by the SL military in Vanni. Their ‘protest’ took place on Tuesday
Protest mobilised by Mahinda Rajapaksa's SLPP in Jaffna
Around 50 people, most of them children, were invited to Mahinda Rajapaksa's Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) office in Jaffna and promised livelihood assistance to their education. They were given placards and asked to stage a protest in front of the bus-stand in Jaffna. Some of the placards were written in broken Tamil exposing SL military intelligence background. The protest was organised by Thambithurai Rajeevan, a former EPDP paramilitary operative, who is now tasked with organising the SLPP in Jaffna. The ‘protest’ took place on Wednesday
