Defence Secretary refuses plea by University dons to release students

Sri Lanka’s hawkish Defence Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa on Friday has “refused outright” a plea by the Jaffna University dons to release soon the four detained students and help resuming the academic activities of the University in the island’s war-ravaged north.

Openly demonstrating a very hostile attitude towards the students society in Jaffna, the Defence Secretary, who is also a junior brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, has made his position explicitly clear at a meeting with the team of Jaffna University academic staff, headed by Vice Chancellor Vasanthi Arasaratnam.

‘rehabilitation and counselling’

“The Defence Secretary flatly refused to accept our request to release these students and help resuming the academic activities. He, however, said that they may be released only after going through a process of ‘rehabilitation and counselling’ at the Welikanda detention camp,” the academic sources in Jaffna told JDS.

“They will not be released now. You should take actions to resume the academic activities,” the sources quoted Mr Rajapaksa as saying at the meeting.

24 year-old Medical Faculty student Darshananth of Kantharmadam, Arts Faculty Union President Kanakasundaraswami Jenamejeyan (24) of Puthukkudiyiruppu, Science Faculty Union member Shanmugam Solomon (24) of Jaffna were arrested along with Students’ Union leader V. Bavanandan on December 29 and 30 by the Sri Lankan police in Jaffna and later taken away to Vavuniya by its Terrorism Investigation Division (TID).

They are now being indefinitely held at the notorious military detention camp in Welikanda under the provisions of the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and the fellow university students are boycotting their academic activities for the past two weeks, demanding their early release.

The meeting between the Defence Secretary and the Jaffna University administration has come amid reports that the police and the military were visiting the houses, private boarding places of many University students, looking for detailed information about their activities and other students. 

Another abduction

Meanwhile, yet another youth from Thavadi in the Jaffna peninsula has been abducted by an unknown group of men on Thursday night around 8.30 pm at Innuvil.

According to the Jaffna office of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission, the youth was travelling in an auto trishaw along with his sister and mother when the group of men coming in a van abducted him.

It said that the sister of the missing has lodged a complaint with the Jaffna HRC in this regard.

Nearly 50 people have either been arrested or kidnapped in Jaffna during the past two weeks. Many among those arrested were former members of the Tamil Tiger rebels, who have gone through the government's “rehabilitation program” and those who have lived under the former LTTE-held areas in the Wanni.

© JDS