Sri Lanka will announce a domestic investigation into the end of the ethnic conflict by the end of June, said president Maithripala Sirisena in an interview with Time.

“We have informed the UN that we’ll have a strong internal mechanism to look into this and we’ve asked for advice and consultancy though the UN high Commissioner for Human Rights,” he said.

Speaking to Time Magazine, Sri Lanka’s president said that he planned to dissolve Parliament in May and hold general elections in late June or early July.

The Bishop of Jaffna Thomas Savundranayagam told the Australian High Commissioner Robyn Mudie that former members of the LTTE who had gone through the military’s ‘rehabilitation’ are still being intimidated frequently, Ceylon Today reports.

Rev Savundranayagam said the new government should ensure the safety of the former cadres.

Two Tamil refugees were arrested by India’s coast guard on Tuesday, according to police.

The youths, form a refugee camp in Trichy, were being monitored by the ‘Q Branch’, a special unit within the Tamil Nadu police force, Outlook reported.

Police say they escaped from the camp and were on their way to Sri Lanka when they were detained.

Residents in Kilinochchi demanded to be resettled in their original lands, reports Uthayan.

Families who had been displaced since 1995, speaking to the Uthayan, said that at least 3000 families in the regions of Vempodukeni, Mukamalai and Ithavil were living as refugees.

The resettlement in the mentioned regions has been delayed over the past 5 years due to government claims that explosives may still be present in the unoccupied lands.
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Photograph:Tamil Guardian

Families of the disappeared in Amparai carried out a silent protests against the Presidential Commission on Missing Persons outside the Kalmunai divisional secretariat for two days on Monday and Tuesday.

The killing of 20 men by Indian police in Andhra Pradesh has resulted in widespread condemnation by politicians and human rights groups, with several protests in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, where the majority of victims were from.

The men were shot by state police, who suspected them of smuggling sandalwood near the border with Tamil Nadu. The police defended their actions, saying they fought back against attacks with axes sticks and stones.

Indian media reported some of the men were shot in the face at close range.

"At one of the two sites where bodies were found, seven of the nine dead had been shot in the face or the back of the head," the Indian Express reported, saying many of the victims had unexplained burn injuries.

The Andhra Pradesh government denied the men were shot at close range and dismissed allegations the men were executed after capture.