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| Photos were garlanded and floral tributes were paid as part of the final rites of seven TRO officials missing for more than a year and now presumed dead. Photo TamilNet |
Seven officials of the Tamils Rehabilitations Organisation (TRO), presumed to have been abducted by the paramilitary Karuna Group working in conjunction with the Sri Lanka Army, went missing on January 29 and 30 last year.
“The 7 aid workers remain “disappeared” over a year after their abduction and, as a result of news reports and information conveyed to our organization, it is with great sorrow and condolences to the families that TRO now believes that our co-workers were executed soon after being abducted by the GoSL-affiliated “Karuna Group” paramilitaries,” the TRO said in a press release.
“Recent news reports state that they were tortured before being murdered and their bodies disposed of,” the press release noted.
“TRO requests that the Police follow up on news reports and investigate the locations where the bodies may be buried,” the press release stated.
The seven TRO officials who disappeared are Mr Thamiraja Vasantharajan, Mr Shanmuganathan Sujendran, Mr Kailasapillai Ravinthiran, Mr Arulthavarasa Satheeskaran, Ms Thanushkodi Premini, Mr Thangarasa Kathirkamar and Mr Kasinathar Ganeshalingam.
Framed memorials with photographs were taken to relatives’ homes in Kilinochchi on 14 March for people to pay their respects. The pictures were then taken in procession to the Kilinochchi Cultural Hall, where the final ceremony was held on Saturday.
Following lighting of the Common flame, relatives garlanded pictures of the seven staffers.
Press reports, and especially an investigative piece compiled by Tamil columnist D.B.S. Jeyaraj, based on interviews with former members of the Karuna Group, formally known as the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP), said that the missing aid workers were executed by paramilitaries of the Karuna Group which took them captive.
The TVMP is an anti-LTTE paramilitary group set up by a renegade LTTE commander, Karuna, who defected to the Sri Lankan military after his six-week rebellion was crushed in an LTTE offensive in early 2004.
“The facts that I am privy to indicate that all seven abducted have been killed,” Mr Jeyaraj reported.
“The solitary woman among them [Ms Thanushkodi Premini] was painfully gang raped before being killed,” he said.
TRO President Mr. Sivanadiyar, speaking at the ceremony stated, “With respect to information on our abducted staff, though we received much information on their status from the beginning, we took much effort and time to ensure and confirm the truth of all the information.”
“In the year since the abductions we have observed a day of fasting and conducted media events in Colombo to publicize and appeal to the Sri Lankan and international community for the release of the abductees. Based on the news that has been published in the Sri Lankan newspapers and based on the research we have performed, we now strongly believe that our staff have lost their lives,” he said.
“Despite the committed efforts taken by the International Red Cross, Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, various Non-Governmental Orgnizations, UN Human Rights Groups, and the TRO, we were unable to save the lives of the seven dedicated workers,” he added.
In the eulogy, Mr Sivanadiyar told the audience of the empathy the staffers had for the people who were suffering amidst violence and economic hardship, and the dedication with which the staffers served the people.
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians Pathmini Sithamparanathan, and K Gajendran, LTTE's senior member Balakumaran, Head of Northeast Secretariat on Human Rights (NESOHR) Rev.Fr. Kanagaratnam, and other officials of the TRO spoke at the event.
