The forty-fifth day remembrance of five Tamil students shot dead in an execution style killing by Sri Lankan armed forces close to a Trincomalee beach on January 2 was held last Wednesday at the location where they died, as investigations into the killings began.
A large number of students, parents, teachers and members of the public attended the memorial event, organised by the Trincomalee District Tamil Peoples’ Forum and Students’ Association.
Photographs of the five students and other Tamil civilians including Sudar Oli journalist killed in Trincomalee by suspected military personnel were kept on a raised dais, with the surrounding area decorated with yellow and red flags.
Relatives and religious leaders of all faiths paid their respects to the slain students and civilians by offering flowers to the photographs. Five candles were lit at the site where the five students died.
Meanwhile, thirteen personnel belonging to Sri Lanka’s elite Special Task Force (STF) are to be produced before the Colombo Judicial Magistrate in connection with the killing of the students.
The STF is the counter-insurgency arm of Sri Lanka’s police force.
The students, former pupils of Trincomalee Sri Koneswara Hindu College and all under the age of 20, were reported by the military to have died in a grenade explosion. However medical staff said they were found to have been shot.
The victims had completed their GCE Advanced Level Examinations in 2004 and 2005 and two had reportedly just received places in university. The murdered students were identified as Shanmugarajah Gajendran, Logitharajah Rohan, Thangathurai Sivanantha, Yogarajah Hemachchandra and Manoharan Rajihar.
“The court determines that the five Tamil youths killed on January 2 night near the sea beach of the east port town had died due to gunshot injuries instantaneously. The court has come to a conclusion that an offence has been committed in this instance. Therefore the court orders the Police to conduct further inquiry into these deaths and to produce the suspects before the court,” said Mr. V. Ramakamalan, Trincomalee Magistrate in his order after a magisterial inquest.
Eyewitnesses reported that unidentified men in a three-wheeler threw a grenade at a group of students gathered at the beach.
Soon after the grenade explosion at the Dock Yard road, uniformed armed men arrived in a vehicle at the scene and the students were taken into the vehicle and were beaten up. Thereafter the armed men ordered the students to lie on the ground and shot at them in the head, according to student witnesses who escaped from the scene.
The Trincomalee Magistrate visited the scene of the crime later that day and found bullet ridden bodies on the road, reported TamilNet.
Members of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), which oversees the February 2002 ceasefire who probed the killings immediately after the incident also found evidence that the five youths died due to shooting.
The Sunday Times reported on January 8 the execution style killings were carried out by a team of Police Special Task Force (STF) commandos.
The paper learnt that after the initial grenade blast, a Chief Petty Officer of the Navy rushed to the spot with some sailors from one road. “By [the time he reached the spot], a team of STF commandos from a neighbouring location arrived at the scene along another road. They allegedly opened fire,” the paper said.
The Sunday Times’s popular ‘Situation Report’ column said the deployment of the STF was ordered by “a retired police official who has now been named as an advisor in the Defence Ministry,” and the order was issued during the period “when Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapakse was away in India accompanying his brother, President Mahinda Rajapakse.”
“With little or no knowledge of the senior armed forces officials in the Trincomalee district, a team of 24 STF commandos led by only a Chief Inspector had been ordered for deployment in Trincomalee,” the paper.
Responsible for this, The Sunday Times learnt, “was a retired police official who has now been named as an advisor in the Defence Ministry. He is reported to have called upon the police commandos to act tough against terrorist elements.”
The paper added that “even if a dispute continued over how the incident [killing of students] began...there was no debate that there was gun fire.”
The advisor referred to by the paper is former Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police, H.N.G.B. Kotakadeniya, a hardline Sinhala Nationalist who was appointed to the advisor position by Sri Lanka’s President Rajapakse.
In an interview that appeared in The Sunday Leader newspaper of January 1, Mr Kotakadeniya “had expressed the need to re-capture Government land in the north now held by Tiger guerrillas” - a suggestion that a war should be waged, it was widely interpreted.
Two weeks ago, Police Chief Chandra. Fernando issued a directive to Asoka Wijetilleke, now DIG Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to detain a group of policemen and question them further with regard to the death of five students in Trincomalee, the Sunday Times reported.
Earlier, President Rajapaksa had directed Mr. Wijetilleke, who was then DIG (Colombo North) based in Gampaha, to conduct investigations into the incident where commandos of the Police Special Task Force (STF) were allegedly involved.
Acting on the directions of DIG Wijetilleke, Director of CID last Monday obtained detention orders under the Emergency Regulations to detain a Sub Inspector attached to the Trincomalee Police and 12 STF personnel for a month.
CID sources told the Sunday Times they would be interrogated but made clear their arrest did not, however, mean their complicity. “Further investigations are necessary to determine that,” the sources said.
A large number of students, parents, teachers and members of the public attended the memorial event, organised by the Trincomalee District Tamil Peoples’ Forum and Students’ Association.
Photographs of the five students and other Tamil civilians including Sudar Oli journalist killed in Trincomalee by suspected military personnel were kept on a raised dais, with the surrounding area decorated with yellow and red flags.
Relatives and religious leaders of all faiths paid their respects to the slain students and civilians by offering flowers to the photographs. Five candles were lit at the site where the five students died.
Meanwhile, thirteen personnel belonging to Sri Lanka’s elite Special Task Force (STF) are to be produced before the Colombo Judicial Magistrate in connection with the killing of the students.
The STF is the counter-insurgency arm of Sri Lanka’s police force.
The students, former pupils of Trincomalee Sri Koneswara Hindu College and all under the age of 20, were reported by the military to have died in a grenade explosion. However medical staff said they were found to have been shot.
The victims had completed their GCE Advanced Level Examinations in 2004 and 2005 and two had reportedly just received places in university. The murdered students were identified as Shanmugarajah Gajendran, Logitharajah Rohan, Thangathurai Sivanantha, Yogarajah Hemachchandra and Manoharan Rajihar.
“The court determines that the five Tamil youths killed on January 2 night near the sea beach of the east port town had died due to gunshot injuries instantaneously. The court has come to a conclusion that an offence has been committed in this instance. Therefore the court orders the Police to conduct further inquiry into these deaths and to produce the suspects before the court,” said Mr. V. Ramakamalan, Trincomalee Magistrate in his order after a magisterial inquest.
Eyewitnesses reported that unidentified men in a three-wheeler threw a grenade at a group of students gathered at the beach.
Soon after the grenade explosion at the Dock Yard road, uniformed armed men arrived in a vehicle at the scene and the students were taken into the vehicle and were beaten up. Thereafter the armed men ordered the students to lie on the ground and shot at them in the head, according to student witnesses who escaped from the scene.
The Trincomalee Magistrate visited the scene of the crime later that day and found bullet ridden bodies on the road, reported TamilNet.
Members of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), which oversees the February 2002 ceasefire who probed the killings immediately after the incident also found evidence that the five youths died due to shooting.
The Sunday Times reported on January 8 the execution style killings were carried out by a team of Police Special Task Force (STF) commandos.
The paper learnt that after the initial grenade blast, a Chief Petty Officer of the Navy rushed to the spot with some sailors from one road. “By [the time he reached the spot], a team of STF commandos from a neighbouring location arrived at the scene along another road. They allegedly opened fire,” the paper said.
The Sunday Times’s popular ‘Situation Report’ column said the deployment of the STF was ordered by “a retired police official who has now been named as an advisor in the Defence Ministry,” and the order was issued during the period “when Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapakse was away in India accompanying his brother, President Mahinda Rajapakse.”
“With little or no knowledge of the senior armed forces officials in the Trincomalee district, a team of 24 STF commandos led by only a Chief Inspector had been ordered for deployment in Trincomalee,” the paper.
Responsible for this, The Sunday Times learnt, “was a retired police official who has now been named as an advisor in the Defence Ministry. He is reported to have called upon the police commandos to act tough against terrorist elements.”
The paper added that “even if a dispute continued over how the incident [killing of students] began...there was no debate that there was gun fire.”
The advisor referred to by the paper is former Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police, H.N.G.B. Kotakadeniya, a hardline Sinhala Nationalist who was appointed to the advisor position by Sri Lanka’s President Rajapakse.
In an interview that appeared in The Sunday Leader newspaper of January 1, Mr Kotakadeniya “had expressed the need to re-capture Government land in the north now held by Tiger guerrillas” - a suggestion that a war should be waged, it was widely interpreted.
Two weeks ago, Police Chief Chandra. Fernando issued a directive to Asoka Wijetilleke, now DIG Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to detain a group of policemen and question them further with regard to the death of five students in Trincomalee, the Sunday Times reported.
Earlier, President Rajapaksa had directed Mr. Wijetilleke, who was then DIG (Colombo North) based in Gampaha, to conduct investigations into the incident where commandos of the Police Special Task Force (STF) were allegedly involved.
Acting on the directions of DIG Wijetilleke, Director of CID last Monday obtained detention orders under the Emergency Regulations to detain a Sub Inspector attached to the Trincomalee Police and 12 STF personnel for a month.
CID sources told the Sunday Times they would be interrogated but made clear their arrest did not, however, mean their complicity. “Further investigations are necessary to determine that,” the sources said.
