Suspicion raised over disappearance of LTTE martyrs' families

by Chamikara Weerasinghe

The sudden disappearance of 90 'martyr's families' of the LTTE from their dwellings in Jaffna have raised the suspicions of the Army who believes that members of these families have been inducted into a certain civilian group, trained by the LTTE to assassinate security personnel.

Following search operations by the Army it has come to light that a majority of LTTE martyr's families had vacated their homes in Jaffna.

Recent LTTE attacks have killed 52 security personnel from December 1 todate.

The families concerned had settled in several locations in the North-East following the CFA.

Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe told the Daily News that the army had learned through its channels that the Martyr's families had been called back to Vanni by their leaders after recent attacks against the security personnel.

"The members of the 90 families had fled their homes as a camouflage," he said.

"We have reasons to believe they have organised and carried out several hand grenade and firearm attacks against the soldiers on duty," he said.

Many of them were among the members of the LTTE's civilian group which have attacked the soldiers in Jaffna and Kondavil, the brigadier said. Reflecting on the security situation, Brigadier Samarasinghe said they had increased the number of search operations in Jaffna and the situation was calm.

"We have been able to recover eight claymore mines as a result of these operations. Four of them had been recovered from Mannar," he said. A considerable number of firearms and hand grenades had been recovered from Kondavil area, where the most number of martyrs families reside, he said.

"In most instances, the Army had responded to the attacks but we avoided opening fire at crowded places, Jaffna town and other places where we came under attack by the LTTE among the civilian population."

"We have informed these violations to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission," he said.

"The security has been tightened especially in Trinco and the troops are ready to retaliate in the event of any terrorist attack," he said.