Sri Lankan police have been collecting details of residents and business-people in Koppay, while refusing to disclose the reason.

Last Thursday, January 31, non-uniformed police officers visited homes and businesses in Koppay’s police division and told residents to fill out a form with details including names and national identity card (NIC) numbers of occupants.

When residents queried the reason for the surveillance, police officers refused to answer, stating only that it was an order from Colombo.

At places where occupants weren’t in, police left the forms with instructions to complete and return to the police station within a week.

Families of the disappeared in Vavuniya protest today, marking their 715th day of continous demonstration demanding answers for their disappeared loved ones. 

Sri Lanka’s president recited a poem declaring Sri Lanka ‘Sinhala land’ during a speech at a military parade in Colombo to mark Independence Day earlier today, stating that it was the “essence of our future vision”.

The Sri Lankan military held parades across the North-East as it marked Independence Day earlier today, in a show of might several years after the end of the armed conflict in the region.

The parades had troops march in formation at streets across various districts, in some cases waving Sri Lankan ‘lion’ flags.

Some of the parades also saw the participation of local Tamil schoolchildren.

See photographs from various districts below.

Tamils across the North-East held black flags today in protesting at the celebrations by the Sri Lankan state for independence day, arguing that the Tamil nation was not free and lacked even basic rights such as land rights. 

In Batticaloa, families of the disappeared protested by the Eastern University campus, rejecting the celebrations of independence, and calling for the government to provide answers for their disappeared loved ones. 

The massacre of eleven Tamil fishermen in 1997 in Ponnalai, Jaffna was remembered last week by families of the victims and residents. 

On January 29, 1997 the fishermen, who had been waiting for a bus by Koththathurai army camp, were shot and killed by Sri Lankan soldiers. 

Locals believed the massacre was done as revenge for a claymore attack against the army a few weeks prior. 

<p>A Sri Lankan police officer in Batticaloa was arrested as he was caught red-handed receiving a bribe last week.</p> <p>Sisira Bandara, the officer in charge at Kokkadicholai police station in&nbsp; the Batticaloa district was arrested on Wednesday by bribery and corruption personnel from Colombo, while he was receiving a 25,000 rupee bribe from the driver of a sand-mining truck.</p> <p>Bandara had reportedly solicited the bribe when he had allowed the driver and helpers to escape after they were caught smuggling sand on Monday. He was caught when the driver went to the police station to hand over the money.</p>

Sri Lanka’s Special Task Force reported that it had arrested two people in Valvettithurai on Thursday, over the possession of over 18kg of cannabis.

The arrests come as the Sri Lankan security forces reportedly began a crackdown on drug use across the island, which has been particularly rampant in the military occupied Tamil North-East.

An Indian navy aircraft participated in a training exercise with Sri Lankan soldiers last week, despite concerns of rights abuses committed by the Sri Lankan military against Tamils on the island.

Sri Lanka’s president said that he was "not aware" of moves to bring about a new constitution for the island and warned that “foreign forces” were operating on the island after meeting with Buddhist monks in Horana this week.