(Photo courtesy - Mathi Suddy)
Sri Lankan police investigated the leader of the Hindu extremist organisation Siva Senai, Maru Sachithananthan for using the word 'Eelam' on a memorial monument erected to commemorate the forcibly disappeared people in the Maravanpulavu area in Jaffna.
Maru Sachithananthan erected the 53-feet high memorial monument in the Maravanpulavu area of Jaffna in memory of his mother and father but also engraved the details of 32 people who went missing in the area on memorial stones. Sachithananthan stated that he was investigated for a memorial stone having the phrase “the Eelam Tamil political future…” engraved on it.
Sachithananthan questioned the basis of the investigations and highlighted that the word “Eelam” is in fact present in the Tamil version of the national anthem.
Earlier this year, Sri Lanka's Terrorism Investigation Department (TID) also interrogated Maru Sachithananthan over alleged links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and was questioned for over two hours.
The Sri Lankan state has extended its crackdown in the North-East over the past year and continued to arrest, surveil and intimidate Tamils and Muslims.
