'Massacred journalists need justice' reads slogan on banner
Residents in Batticaloa on Saturday remembered the 13th anniversary of the murder of the Tamil journalist, Subramaniyam Sugirdharajan, who was shot dead in Trincomalee after exposing the Sri Lankan Special Task Force's killing of 5 Tamil students, known as the 'Trinco 5'.
The event took place in front of Gandhi Park in Batticaloa and was organised by the Batticaloa division of the Tamil Journalists Association. The local deputy mayor took part.
Sugirdharajan, who was a journalist at the Sudar Oli paper, had accompanied one of the father of the murdered students, Dr Manoharan to the mortuary and published photos showing the bodies with point-blank gunshot injuries, thereby disproving government claims that the students had been killed by a grenade explosion.
The family of Subramaniyam Sugirdharajan mourn besides his body after he was gunned down in Trincomalee
The 'Trinco 5' – remains one of the highest profile killings in Sri Lanka to receive international attention, listed in 2014 by the then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights' report on the island as one of four ‘emblematic cases’ of the government's failure to ensure accountability and having been raised repeatedly in international forums.
To date no one has been held accountable for the Trinco 5 murders or for the killing of Sughirdharajan.
