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| Red Cross representatives paid homage to S. Shanmuganathan and K. Chandramohan, two Red Cross workers whose bodies were found a day after they were abducted in Colombo by Sinhalese speaking armed men who claimed to be policemen. Photo TamilNet |
The deaths are the worst attack against aid workers here since the massacre of 17 French charity workers last August.
The Geneva-based charity said the bullet-riddled bodies of Sinnarajah Shanmugalingam, 38, and Karthigesu Chandramohan, 28, were discovered late Saturday in the central town of Ratnapura, hours after they were abducted from the main railway station in Colombo.
"The two were part of a group of six aid workers brought from Batticaloa (in the island's east) for a training programme related to tsunami relief work last week," Sri Lanka Red Cross director general Neville Nanayakkara told AFP.
"Some people in civil clothes said they were from the police and wanted to see the identity cards of the six workers," Nanayakkara said. "They took away two of them saying it was for further questioning."
He said they were alerted to the bodies found in Ratnapura after a local television channel on Saturday night showed images of unidentified victims found in the area.
Nanayakkara said he had informed the island's defence secretary and police chief about the missing aid workers early Saturday, but there was no response.
The defence ministry said people who "claimed to be from the (police) Criminal Investigations Department," had abducted the aid workers in a white van and added that police were investigating.
Separately, the head of the Sri Lanka Red Cross in Batticaloa, Mr Vasantharajah, told the media that after completing the training program on Thursday and Friday, the group had gone to the Fort Railway station to take the train to Batticaloa.
A group of Sinhala speaking men had examined their Identity cards and taken Shanmuganathan and Chandramohan in a white van for "questioning," according to the other four members of the group.
The leader of the aid workers had told the men that the two did not know Sinhala volunteered to help with the questioning, but the men declined the offer.
Shanmuganathan joined the Red Cross in 1997, is from Vilavettan, Vavunatheevu, while Chandramohan, from Kaluwankerni, had been with the Red Cross from 1999.
The Officer in Charge of Kiriella Police, Mr Vijetunge told the media that the bodies will be transferred to the Colombo Red Cross headquarters after post mortem examinations.
The killings came on the same day that President Mahinda Rajapakse met with relatives of more than 100 people who had gone missing in recent months.
Rajapakse told relatives that 90 percent of the cases reported as abductions and disappearances were linked to domestic disputes, his office said in a statement before the killings of the Red Cross workers were reported.
"He explained that neither the government nor the security forces had any necessity to carry on illegal acts of abduction and that the government always acted in keeping with the law," the statement said.
The deaths in August of the local workers for the French charity Action Against Hunger in the northeastern town of Muttur were blamed by Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) on the military, a charge denied by defence authorities.
The case is now being investigated by a special presidential commission under international supervision, but international observers have said the inquiry is flawed and criticised delays that have resulted in the inquiry stalling.
