Dozens of Sri Lankan police officers stormed Maaveerar Naal commemorations at the Tharavai Thuyilum Illam in Batticaloa and arrested at least four Tamils earlier today.
Cameras captured the moment that Sri Lankan police raided the commemoration.
As lamps were about the be lit and the 'Thuyium Illam' song started being played, uniformed Sri Lankan officers were pulling down red and yellow bunting that had been placed around the cemetery.
Then the speakers were seized, and power cut halfway through the song. The hundreds of mourners in attendance, including the mother of a fallen fighter who had lit the sacrificial flame, stood there in silence with their heads bowed.
Some wailed and let out tears, as the Sri Lankan police continued to vandalise commemorations. Armed with riot shields and batons officers tore down red and yellow flags and pulled lamps out of the ground.
“We are government officers,” a police officer is heard telling the TNPF MP Selvarajah Kajendran.
“Are you behaving like a government officer?” responded Kajendran. “What is this? Thousands of people are here. What is the court order?”
The storming of the Thuyilum Illam – an LTTE cemetery which housed thousands of graves before the Sri Lankan state bulldozed them all – came after commemorations had just taken place to remember the war dead. Thousands of Tamils had gathered at the cemetery, from families to activists and politicians including the TNA parliamentarian Shanakiyan Rasamanickam.
Uniformed officers began pulling down the decorations that Tamils had placed all along the cemetery, even as songs continued to play through the loudspeakers.
The Sri Lankan state launched a crackdown against commemorations this morning, after days of attempting to prevent events from going ahead through court orders, arrests and even further destruction of memorials.
A TNPF activist was arrested in Batticaloa this morning, whilst another party activist in the East was subjected to a court order. In Amparai, party leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam was amongst several dozen Tamils prevented from attending commemorations.
