A Tamil television journalist working an Sri Lanka army-held area in the northern Jaffna peninsula was hacked to death along with his friend on Wednesday evening when he was returning home from work, officials from the TV station said.
"Our Jaffna correspondent Paranerupasinghem Devakumar was hacked to death in the army-controlled area in Jaffna yesterday evening," said Susil Kindelpitiya, news director of the Maharaja Television and Radio, said on Thursday May 28.
The friend accompanying him, 24-year-old computer technician Mahendran Varadan, died later in hospital from the injuries he sustained in the attack.
A media rights groups condemned the killing and said the government's vociferous condemnations and promises of inquiries were meaningless without the will to push investigations forward.
Free Media Movement (FMM) an influential media rights group in a statement said, Devakumar is the ninth media worker to have been killed in Jaffna since 2006.
"It is with sickeningly increasing frequency that we are compelled to ask the government to take concrete measures to halt the killing, assault and intimidation of journalists in Sri Lanka," FMM statement said.
The FMM said none of the disappearances, abductions or murders of media workers have been probed and the perpetrators brought to justice.
Stressing that Devakumar’s murder was just the latest in a series of killings of journalists in the troubled Jaffna region, the Free Media Movement said condemnations and promises of investigations had no meaning “without the political will” to complete the investigations. “The repugnant impunity that aids and abets violence against journalists and media personnel must come to an end,” the FMM said.
According to Amnesty International, at least 10 Sri Lankan media workers have been killed over the past two years, while others have been abducted, tortured or illegally detained.
Most are Tamil journalists working in the ethnic Tamil majority areas of the north and east. Sinhalese journalists working in the south also face intimidation, particularly when reporting cases of graft, Amnesty said.
Reporters Without Borders expressed its outrage at the latest killing and said: “The government in Colombo must do everything possible to establish the circumstances of this murder and identity those responsible, so that it does not go unpunished as so many others have.”
Reporters Without Borders added: “Although no suspect has yet been found, the security forces should explain how this attack took place in an area of the peninsula that is supposed to be under close military control. The government is exposing both its inability and its lack of political will to protect journalists.”
The government has reportedly assigned three police teams to probe the incident. Priority could not be given to any hypothesis for the time being as Devakumar was known for covering both sides of the war between the government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). He had not been criticised or threatened in the past and a personal motive cannot be ruled out.
Media rights watchdogs describe Sri Lanka as one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists after Iraq.
On May 22, Keith Noyahr, a deputy editor of The Nation weekly, was abducted and severely beaten after criticising Colombo's war against LTTE.
Sri Lanka's defence secretary branded as "traitors" any journalists who wrote reports that could damage the security forces.
Journalists are barred from visiting front lines or areas held by the LTTE.
