Mullaitivu police arrested Tamil farmers who were cultivating farmland at the foothills of Kurunthurmalai, where a Buddhist temple has been illegally constructed.
The farmers were cultivating the privately owned land when they were obstructed by a Buddhist monk, Galgamuwa Shantha Bodhi, police and Department of Archaeology officials before they were arrested.
Bodhi, the head monk who spearheaded the construction of the illegal Buddhist temple with the support of Sri Lanka's military, has unlawfully occupied hundreds of acres of land historically belonging to Tamil residents in the Kurunthurmalai region.
The landowner Sasikumar, who is currently undergoing treatment for a heart condition at Jaffna Teaching Hospital, had organised for the farmers to cultivate the land using irrigation from the Kumalamunai Thannimurippu tank located nearby.
However, the farmers were blocked from doing so and were threatened by the monk, archaeology officials before being arrested by Mullaitivu police officers. Their farming equipment was seized and the farmers were taken to Mullaitivu police station.
Earlier this month, the Director General of Sri Lanka’s Department of Archaeology, Professor Thusitha Mendis, conducted an inspection of the illegally constructed Buddhist Vihara, despite a court order explicitly prohibiting further construction at the site. The authorities are accused of enabling the seizure of over 300 acres of land traditionally belonging to Tamil villagers in and around Thannimurippu.
The Kurunthurmalai site, now illegally occupied and controlled by a Buddhist monk, stands as yet another symbol of cultural erasure and land dispossession under the guise of religious and archaeological preservation.
