Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Friday declared open a new facility for the Civil Defence Force in Manal Aaru, in the Mullaitivu district in the North-East of the island.

Rajapaksa unveiled a commemorative plaque in Sinhala and opened a Buddhist shrine, before planting a sapling of the Bhodi tree, a plant holy to Buddhists.

The new facility will also include a new pre-school and the defence secretary ceremoniously registered the first two children at the school.

The Sri Lankan government is to stop certain NGOs from receiving foreign funding, the Sinhala daily Divaina newspaper reports, citing a high ranking government source.

The funding is to be stopped for NGOs deemed to be a risk to national security, the paper added, stating that six NGOs had "received funds to launch campaigns to force the withdrawal of military from the North and bring war crime charges against the security forces."

A Tamil cricket team from the North-East was racially abused by Sinhalese cricket fans during a match in the south, causing the match against Gampaha to be halted, reported Global Tamil News.

Gampaha fans shouting “get out Tamil dogs" and throwing rocks and rubbish at the Tamil players who were from Valvettiththurai in Jaffna.

Militarisation of the North-East and sexual violence against Tamils are "closely interlinked" said Jaffna University Lecturer of Law, Kumaravadivel Guruparan, commenting on the recent release of 7 Sri Lankan navy rape suspects, accused of the rape of an 11 year old girl in Karainagar.

"It is noteworthy that the incident took place in the Karainagar Island," said Mr Guruparan to the Tamil Guardian.

"In the mid 1980s a colonial era navy camp in Karainagar was expanded and in 2003 (during the ceasefire period) 153 families were sent legal notice regarding acquisition of more than 78 acres of land. When I was carrying out some research on this in 2012 I was told by people that even those who lived within 1 1/2 km radius to the camp didn't want to live there for reasons of insecurity," he said.

"The incident is yet another reminder of the closely interlinked issues of militarisation and sexual violence," Mr Guruparan added, drawing attention to another recent rape case, where the suspect was a Sri Lankan soldier.

Photograph Ada Derana

Ranil Wickramasinghe, the leader of the opposition party, UNP warned that "to save the Sinhala Buddhists in the island, all the other races must also be safeguarded," the Colombo Page reports.

"If this is not guaranteed, the other races might go to international community to ask for their rights," he said, speaking at a UNP event at Gampola, in Kandy district, criticising the government for not taking action to "save the name of the Sinhala Buddhists".

Three men, including at least one refugee, who were arrested by the Malaysian authorities earlier this month for alleged links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, have been handed over to Sri Lanka and are being interrogated by the notorious Terrorism Investigation Department.

“The three LTTE suspects- Edmond Singharaja alias Seelan, Angurukankanamlage Indika Sanjeewa alias Mohamed Sanjaya Abdul and Abdul Saleem Bin Mohamed- were brought to Sri Lanka last night,” the Police media unit said in a statement, according to the Daily Mirror.