Civil Defence Committee members:

Source of strength to police - Senior DIG

Lakshmi de Silva

When two children were playing they had seen a parcel hidden in a dilapidated toilet and they informed their parents. The father, a natami ( a loader) immediately informed the police and a large stock of C 4 explosives was recovered .

When the police offered a cash reward of Rs. 500,000 to him and his two children the man hailing from Jaffna refused to accept it saying he wanted peace in this country and not a red cent as reward, Senior DIG Nimal Mediwaka said at a Civil Defence Force meeting held at Visakha Vidyalaya Colombo yesterday.

“Therefore do not think that every Tamil citizen was a terrorist. One third of the information about terrorists we received from the Civil Defence Committees were from Tamil people who wanted peace in this country,” the Senior DIG said.

With the help of Civil Defence Committees in Colombo alone the Police recovered nearly 4,000 kilograms of C4 explosives, arms and ammunition and it helped to save the city of Colombo and its people. But earlier the LTTE used to attack Colombo when they were defeated in the North and East to divert the attention of the forces

The terrorists used only 200 kilograms of explosives in their attack on the Central Bank building to destroy almost the whole of the building but one could imagine the destruction that could have been caused if the LTTE used 4000 kilograms of explosives, he said.

He thanked the Civil Defence Committee members who helped to save the City of Colombo from terrorist attacks. It was a source of strength to the Police force he noted.