Crime rate: Jaffna municipality slams government

COLOMBO: The Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) passed a resolution on Thursday criticising the Sri Lankan government for not controlling crime in the northern peninsula. The resolution said that though abductions, armed robberies and murders were on the rise in recent weeks, the government had not taken any corrective action. The JMC blamed the Lankan government because the Northern Province, where Jaffna falls, does not have a Provincial Council. And at any rate, law and order is a central subject under the Sri Lankan constitution. The Northern Province is currently under a centrally controlled bureaucracy and the armed forces.

“Although it is claimed that terrorism has been eliminated, and gun culture has been banished, gun culture is the order of the day in the peninsula. “Unidentified groups are indulging in murder, armed robberies and demanding ransom with impunity, even as the peninsula is bristling with army camps. We condemn this state of affairs vehemently,” the resolution said.

Mayor Yogeswari Patkunarajah of the Eelam Peoples’ Democratic Party (EPDP) said that the council planned to write to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the Lankan police chief, Mahinda Balasuriya on this question.

Briefing Express on the meeting, Patkunarajah said that if all groups in society joined together, the perpetrators of the crimes could be caught and justice rendered. The local commander of the army, Maj Gen Mahinda Hathurusinghe, points an accusing finger at the former cadre of the LTTE who are at large. And a high ranking police official, speaking to Sudar Oli daily recently, put the blame on elements from outside the province. Asked to identify the groups which might be involved, Mayor Patkunarajah said that it was difficult to do so in the absence of any investigations.

A number of crimes took place in November and December. The last day of 2010 saw the abduction of a women grocer at Alwai in the Vadamarachchi region. The police were told that six men in a white van dragged her out of her house, thrust her into the van, and sped away. When her children tried to pull her away, the men threatened to open fire. A day earlier, a 30-year old male teacher was abducted by armed men at Urumpirai. His wife has appealed to the Human Rights Commission of Jaffna to trace his whereabouts.


(2011-1-2/expressbuzz)