People free to follow any religion - Maj Gen Lal Perera

Rakshana Sriyantha

The Udayan newspaper once again tried to arouse communal tension by publishing a news report on May 28 saying that the TNA had written to President Mahinda Rajapaksa protesting against moves to erect a Budu Medura near the entrance to the Batticaloa Municipal Council premises.

Eastern Province Security Forces Commander Maj Gen Lal Perera condemned this news report and said the people in this country had the freedom to profess and follow any religion wherever they lived. This applied to the members of the security forced too. This is a unitary country which had not carved out any particular area or part of this country to a special segment of society or community irrespective of what certain politicians might do, he said.

The ordinary Tamil people have no religious bias or differences. The ordinary Tamils even worshiped the Buddha whom they considered as an incarnation of Deity Vishnu, he added.

Maj General Lal Perera said it was the TNA which tried to rekindle communalism by creating problems among religions. The TNA wanted to create another communal conflict somehow.

"It is the present government which renovated the kovils of Tamils devastated due to terrorism after the war ended," the Major General said.

"Did the people of the North enjoy the freedom to follow their religion under the de facto rule of the LTTE terrorists?" he asked. The LTTE did not allow the Tamils to live peacefully even in their homes let alone follow any religion, he said. He said by writing such letters, the TNA was trying to ignite communal clashes. There was suspicion among ordinary Tamils as to whether the TNA was scheming to take the country back to war by creating religious tensions, said Maj General Perera.

What the Tamils in the North and East actually desired today was to derive benefits from the giant development programmes launched in their regions by the government, he pointed out.

He said at a time when massive development projects were unfolding in the North and East, the Udayan paper and certain Tamil political parties and groups were trying to satisfy the Tamil diaspora abroad by arousing communal tension harping over some topic. But he said he was certain that ordinary Tamils in the North and East would never leave room for the Tamil diaspora to achieve its sinister motives.