Chairman of Valikamam North PS receives threats over land acquisition claims
Tuesday, 12 November 2013 01:33
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By Dharisha Bastians
The Chairman of Valikamam North has received several threatening phone calls after his office began collecting information regarding the resettlement of families in the Palaly East area while there were legal claimants to the land, the Tamil National Alliance said yesterday.
TNA MP E. Saravanabhavan told the Daily FT that S. Sugeethan had received three threatening phone calls on Saturday night. “The severed head of a cow was placed at the home of Chairman of the Valikamam North Pradeshiya Sabha in Jaffna yesterday,” Saravanabhavan said, adding that the local Government official had been badly scarred by the incident.
The PS Chairman had filed a complaint with the local Police regarding the threats, the MP said.
The TNA MP said that his party believed the sudden resettlement in Palay East of persons with no legal claim to the area was an attempt to move persons out of certain other regions of Jaffna ahead of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit there.
Meanwhile, Saravanabhavan said that the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchchi had planned a hunger strike by those families claiming land in the Valikamam North area.
The demonstration was planned to coincide with the Commonwealth summit in Colombo to draw attention to the ongoing rights abuses in the former conflict zone.
The military recently commenced the demolition of hundreds of homes in the disputed area, even though some of them were only partially damaged and there are thousands of cases pending in Appeals Court about the area.
The move comes even as authorities this week shut down the Jaffna University for an extended period until 2 December, citing CHOGM as a reason. However other universities in the south of the country have been closed only until 19 November.
