Durairasa Ravikaran, a former member of the North Provincial Assembly, has expressed suspicion that under the massive Buddhist temple built in some army camps in Mullaithivu district may be mass graves. Ravikaran pointed out the large-scale construction of viharas in military camps including Vattuwagal and Keppapulau.
He said this while commenting to the media after visiting Mullaitivu-Kokkuthoduvai mass graves excavation works. Kokkuthoduwai is an area that has long been a military territory. In December 1984, the army expelled all the Tamil people from here. For a long time since then, Kokkuthotuwai has been under the control of the army.
We know that when the war ended in 2009, those who surrendered were put in buses and taken to some places. There are even chances that those who surrendered may have been slaughtered by the military and then brought and buried here.
Currently, when excavation work is carried out here, many human remains are still visible, and we don’t know if excavation work is going on properly here.
The human remains excavated here were placed in unprotected boxes. It is our request that international experts should be involved in these excavation works and based on international expertise, these excavation works should be carried out following international norms. People suspect that the LTTE fighters who surrendered during the final phase of the war were killed and buried here.
Why is it that the relatives of those who have been missing for more than 14 years since the war has been ended are still struggling to find their missing relatives. But successive Sri Lankan governments do not seem to be responding adequately to the relationships of the disappeared he added.
