Families have been encouraged by the Terrorism Investigation Department (TID) to register their disappeared as dead, reports the Uthayan.
Reports suggest that the TID have set up unpublicised events for families of the disappeared and offered monetary gains and food rations to incentivise families into registering their disappeared as dead.
Families were also offered further concessions of loan facilities and housing facilities for cooperating with the TID. The Sri Lankan president’s son and Member of Parliament, Namal Rajapaska allegedly spoke at the events run by the TID.
The TID efforts to reduce disappearance claims come as Northern Provincial Councillor, Ananthi Sasitharan, wrote to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, to call for an international independent inquiry into forced disappearances and abductions in the North-East.
'We do not trust any mechanism created locally' - Disappearances Committee NE
(20 January 2014)
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