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Sri Lanka: Authorities refuse to handover remains of killed Tamil prisoner

Sri Lankan police and a district court on Thursday refused to handover to bereaved parents the dead body of a Tamil political prisoner, beaten to death inside a prison on Tuesday (03). The request to hand over the remains of Ganeshan Nimalaruban was refused by police, claiming that his funeral arrangements could result in a violent situation in his home town of Vavuniya.

The 28 year old Nimalaruban of Nelukulam in Vavuniya who succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday night was admitted to the Ragama hospital, according to government authorities. Hospital authorities told journalists on Wednesday that they were handed over a dead body by prison officials. Nimalaruban along with dozen other fellow Tamil prison inmates were hospitalized after being brutally attacked first by the army and Special Task Force and then by prison officials.  

According to legal sources, late Nimalaruban was arrested by the police seven months ago on suspicion of having links with the Tamil Tigers and was held in prisons without any charges. The police has now charged that he was one of the key leaders of the LTTE who had continued to 'engage in LTTE related activities.'

The police told the Mahara Magistrate that 'Tamil Tigers who are active in northern Vavuniya' will make use of the funeral to disrupt the law and order. The police made these charges made these charge at the magisterial inquiry when the bereaved parents turned up at the Ragama hospital to take charge of the remains of their only son.

Court order

Positively considering the charges levelled against the victim by the police, Mahara Magistrate Mapa Bandara issued an injunction order preventing the remains being handed over to victim's parents and taken to home town. He also ordered that his remains be buried at the Mahara-Kadawatha General Cemetery at the State expense.  

Amidst tight security, the Mahara police are hurriedly making arrangements to bury his body at the Eldeniya Cemetery in the Western province. They have also taken the parents into custody preventing them from meeting their legal representatives, human rights activists and supportive organisations.

'Bled to death'

Talking to the JDS via phone after visiting the attacked Tamil political prisoners in Mahara prison and Ragama Hospital on Wednesday, Jaffna district parliamentarian of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Suresh K. Premachandran said that the all these prisoners have been assaulted mercilessly by the prison officials first in Vavuniya, then Anuradhapura and finally in Mahara prisons.

“They are left to bleed. Nimalaruban succumbed to his injuries because the prison officials deliberately left him to bleed to death. The attacks on this group of 31 Tamil political prisoners had been led by the Prison Superintendent of Anuradhapura himself,” MP Premachandran said.

He said that a group of convicted criminals serving sentence at the Anuradhapura prison have also been brought in by the prison officials to launch the attack on the Tamil prisoners continuously for almost 10 hours using iron rods and poles.

“All of them have suffered serious injuries while one of them has had gun shot injury. At least six of them are admitted to the Mahara prison hospital. Four are admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Ragama hospital with one of them in coma,” he said. "They were all beaten up as if it was a revenge attack" he further added.

Listen to the audio:

{saudioplayer}suresh_premachandran.mp3{/saudioplayer}

'Death from heart failure'

Making a statement in parliament on Wednesday, Minister of Rehabilitation and Prison Reforms, Chandrasiri Gajadeera has said that Tamil prisoner Nimalaruban has died of heart attack and that he was already suffering from serious heart ailment.  

Minister Gajadeera had made this statement before the post-mortem report was released.

Meanwhile, the major Tamil political party leaders in the country on Thursday evening have met a cross section of the diplomatic heads of missions in Colombo and urged them to exert pressure on the Rajapaksa government to carry out an impartial forensic examination to find out the real cause of Nimalaruban's  death. The Tamil politicians have requested the foreign envoys  to intervene in getting Nimalaruban’s parents released from the police custody and ensure the safety of remaining Tamil political prisoners languishing in prisons elsewhere in the country.

© JDS