Protesters stone Jaffna courthouse
Security was tightened with Special Task Force personnel deployed in some parts of Jaffna town following a sudden eruption of violence in the vicinity of the Jaffna Magistrate’s Court last morning.
Over 250 people surrounded the courthouse and pelted stones and burnt tyres, damaging the building and vehicles parked nearby.
Reports said 127 people were arrested and 36 motorcycles taken into custody in the wake of the violence, during which five policemen had also been injured.
A suspect believed to be a Swiss was arrested on Tuesday in connection with the alleged rape and killing of an 18 year old schoolgirl. He was to be produced in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday.
Police and the STF fired shots in the air and used tear gas to control the angry protesters. They had dispersed later in the afternoon and the situation had returned to normal by then.
The crowd turned restive when they found that there was a delay in producing the suspect in Court. The protesters had gathered in Jaffna town and marched towards the courthouse, prior to the eruption of violence.
Reports said the Police had decided to delay bringing the suspect to court fearing unrest by the angry crowd. As a result of the violence, the suspect was not brought to court.
The suspect was arrested i n Wellawatta on Tuesday afternoon, when he was allegedly attempting to flee the country, and brought to Jaffna.
According to the protesters, a prominent lawyer in the North is reported to have facilitated the attempted escape. A crowd of protesters had held the lawyer prisoner on Tuesday.
The situation had gone from bad to worse following a call on Monday for a hartal on Tuesday, by several associations in Jaffna.
This had caused shops in Kasthuriar Road, Jaffna being closed on Tuesday and other shops in the vicinity of Jaffna town joining in the hartal.
The crowd had converged (on foot and on motor cycles and on push cycles) on Jaffna town.
18-year-old Vindya Sivaloganadan was allegedly raped and killed on May 13, and her body, with several cut injuries and hands and feet tied, was recovered the next day from an abandoned block of land between her home and the school.
Three suspects were arrested on May 14 and five others the next day. The other suspect, the Swiss, who was said to be the ringleader, was arrested on Tuesday, the nineteenth.
Of the nine suspects five were produced in court last morning, prior to the violence, and remanded till June 1 by the Jaffna Magistrate.
(Hafeel Farisz ,Chaturanga Pradeep, Suren Gunasekaram and M. Shanmugan)