Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Child abductions on rise in Jaffna

Local human rights watchdogs in Jaffna have blamed media for failing to cover the abductions that are on the rise in Jaffna peninsula this weekend as a father from Valveddith-thu'rai (VVT) managed to chase a vehicle that abducted his son, securing his release in Ki'linochchi and a media worker at the Indian Deputy High Commission in Jaffna found his abducted son returning from Ki'linochchi
the following day after the abductors finding him the son of an officer in the Indian mission in Jaffna. As the abductees are being taken to hide-outs in Ki'linochchi, human rights activists in Jaffna allege that the occupying Sri Lankan military is involved in the abductions.

When the father of a victim managed to chase the abductors and release his son with the help of the occupying SL Police, the abductors walked free from the Police, informed sources further said. Many of the victims being abducted are boys under the age of fourteen years.

On Friday, 14-year-old Archayan Prabakaran, the son of media worker at the Indian Deputy High Commission, was abducted away to a hide-out in Ki'linochchi. When the abductors learned the background of the boy, they brought him back to Jaffna and released him behind the Nalloor temple on Saturday. Archayan is a student attending 9th grade at St. Johns College in Jaffna.

In the meantime, a father from Ki'linochchi chased a vehicle of a group of abductors who had abducted his son from Valveddith-thu'rai. The father followed the vehicle to Ki'linochchi and confronted the abductors at the presence of the occupying SL Police in the town. The SL police handed over his son to the father. However, the abductors walked free, eyewitnesses told TamilNet. The family, when contacted, was reluctant to reveal the name of their son recovered from the hands of the abductors, for security reasons.

Another teenage boy from Vadamaraadchi, 14-year-old Senthooran, who is the son of Saiva priest Yogeswara Kurukka'l from Kerudaavil village in Tho'ndaimaanaa'ru, has been reported missing since 19 May. Senthooran was on his way to Uduppiddi American Mission school, a private school located at Navu'ndil, at the time of the abduction. Senthooran was studying at 10th grade.

Meanwhile, human rights activists, who voice for the rights of the children, have cautioned about different other types of ‘abductions’ and have warned the parents of teenagers, who wander freely in the streets of Jaffna.

A 13-year-old boy from Maasiyap-piddi situated between Cha'ndilippaay and A'laveddi, was recently spotted by his parents who were searching for him for almost one-year.

The boy had been kidnapped by two Muslim traders from Batticaloa and was ‘convinced’ to work for them. The boy had been taken to Batticaloa, converted to Islam and he was subjected to male circumcision. Later, when he was brought to Jaffna to do business along the streets of the city, the parents of the boy discovered him and secured his release through the SL Police in Jaffna.

In the meantime, a few days ago, Muslim leaders in Jaffna came out with a public statement denouncing the anti-social elements in Muslims that cause disharmony between both the subjugated peoples, Tamils and Tamil Muslims. An incident in which two Muslim scrap metal traders raped a mentally challenged girl when they went to buy metal in a house at Kaarainakar, prompted the Muslim leaders to come out with the statement.

All orchestrated efforts are ultimately to bring in a feeling in Eezham Tamils that their land is not a place to live, and it doesn't belong to them, so that the demographic changes envisaged by the genocidal Sinhala state and the 'cosmopolitanism' of a multicultural Sri Lanka for the 'development' of the abetting powers could be achieved, said social activists in Jaffna.

Sometimes back, the US Asst. Secretary of State Robert Blake visiting Jaffna, spoke against the Grease Devils, as though stopping it was in his hands. But terrorizing Eezham Tamils take different avatars from time to time: from Grease Devils to slaying diaspora visitors and from attack on students to abduction of teenagers. The so-called international community loses all credibility, if at all it has any remaining after the genocidal war, in talking about 'reconciliation' without knowing how to remove the mother of all evil – the occupying Sinhala military in the country of Eezham Tamils, the activists further said.

TN