Ex-Eastern Province CM Pillaiyan files FR petition in SC seeking bail

By S. S. Selvanayagam

Former Eastern Province Chief Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillaiyan filed a fundamental rights (FR) violation petition challenging his alleged arbitrary arrest and detention as the third suspect in connection with the assassination of former Batticaloa Parliamentarian Joseph Pararajasingham on 25 December 2005.

 Pillaiyan who is also the leader of the political party Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (Tamil People Liberation Tigers) cited the Inspector General of Police, seven CID officers and the Attorney General as respondents.

 The TMVP leader claims that having left the LTTE, he fully extended his cooperation to the military, fighting side by side with the Army and providing crucial and vital support to defeat the LTTE, and that his alliance with the Army was one of several influential factors in the relentless march towards victory by the Sri Lankan Forces.

 He said he had been detained with the Detention Order from the Defence Ministry which, he maintains, has lapsed with the effluxion of the designated period (three months) and thereafter continued to be held in remand under judicial custody.  Pillaiyan asserted that he was staying in one of the high security houses maintained by the State Intelligence Service near Sapugaskanda under the protection of the Army Intelligence service on the day of the said incident of murder.

 He neither involved himself nor instructed, nor ordered anyone to commit the murder of Parliamentarian Joseph Pararajasingham, he added.

The petitioner further said that his bail application was dismissed by the Batticaloa High Court. He lamented he has been held in long incarceration by abusing and misconstruing the provisions of PTA, systematically depriving him of liberty and freedom of movement. Pillaiyan also alleges that prior to the last Presidential Election held in January 2015 as well as the Parliamentary Elections held in August 2015, he was severely pressurised to extend his cooperation to implicate the former Defence Secretary and a few other political heads of the former regime with criminal offences.

 His continued incarceration is an integral component of well disguised political plan by a certain group of powerful persons, he asserted. Pillaiyan is seeking the Court to direct the Magistrate’s Court to enlarge him in bail and also seeking a declaration that his fundamental right to equality, right to freedom from torture or degrading treatment, right to freedom from being discriminated against on the grounds of political opinion, freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention have been infringed.