Sri Lankan military spokesman in Colombo, Brigadier Ruwan Vanigasooriya, on Tuesday admitted to journalists in the South that the SL military was detaining Medical Officer Ratnasingham Sivashankar. According to the spokesman of the occupying SL military, the Tamil doctor has been detained because he had "trespassed" into the military base where Tamil women were being held for military training.
The doctor had entered the camp in connection with a recently recruited female trainee relative, Vanigasooriya claimed, and added that the doctor had showed ‘false reasons’ and had tried to make contact with a recently ‘recruited’ Tamil females and tried to discourage them from undergoing training. He tried to question the SL military officials on the recruitment of Tamil females and the SL military has arrested him on suspicion, he said.
The doctor is now detained at the Maangku'lam military camp and is being investigated by the Sri Lankan ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Department (TID), the SL military spokesman further said.
Vanigasooriya was also referring to the doctor as authoring articles in Uthayan newspaper published from Jaffna.
The doctor, now attached to the Blood Bank of the Anuradhapura hospital, was formerly working at the Jaffna hospital and was in charge of the Blood Bank there.
Informed sources in Ki'linochchi said that Doctor Sivashankar had gone to the Kokkaavil camp to talk to the SL military officers to persuade them to free one of the girls who had been forcefully taken away by the military from her house after sitting for GCE O/L exams. The girl had refused to report back to the military training at Kokkaavil SL military base where she was one of around hundred Tamil women who had been coerced into joining the SL military for ‘civil posts’ and later conscripted for military service.
The girls were held at Paarathipuram SL military base where at least 21 of them became mentally affected after being harassed by the occupying SL military.
After their conscription, their parents were not able to contact their daughters, and they were in shock to learn that the victims were admitted to the hospital on 12 December 2012. Official explanation from the SL military was that 13 females were admitted in a “possessed” state.
Doctor Sivashankar has acted with independence and impartiality during his service at Jaffna hospital, medical sources at the hospital said adding that he had specialized in the field of psychology.
Sivashankar was in charge of the Blood Bank for several years at the hospital till he was transferred to Anuradhapura in 2010. The SL governor in North was behind the transfer.
When EPRLF-Varathar faction's Jaffna leader Subaththiran was assassinated, allegedly by the Tigers in June 2003, Sivashankar had published an obituary in the form of a paid advertisement when the papers refused to publish an obituary, informed media sources in Jaffna said confirming his independent personality.
TN
