The Chairman of the Valikamam North Pradeshiya Sabha, S. Sugirthan, has issued an urgent notice to the Jaffna District Military Commander demanding the immediate suspension of construction work on a Sri Lankan military hospital being built on privately owned civilian land in Vasavilan, Jaffna.
The official letter, dated 9 June 2026 and addressed to the Jaffna District Commander, has also been forwarded to the Attorney General. According to the notice, the communication serves as the final statutory notice required under Section 28A(1) of the Urban Development Authority Law, issued by an authorised officer under Section 23(5) of the same legislation.
The notice states that if the Sri Lankan military fails to stop construction activities and release the land before 16 June, the Pradeshiya Sabha will proceed with legal action under its statutory powers. Sugirthan said that proceedings would be initiated before the Mallakam Magistrate's Court under the provisions of the Urban Development Authority Law, as amended by Act No. 4 of 1982 and Act No. 44 of 1984.
The notice escalates a dispute that has been building for weeks. The Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi had already pledged legal action over the construction of the unauthorised hospital, after President's Counsel M. A. Sumanthiran, party acting leader C. V. K. Sivagnanam and Sugirthan visited the site to inspect the works. The hospital is being built on land belonging to a local Tamil family whose property was seized during the armed conflict and never returned.
Significantly, the politicians who inspected the site observed that the hospital is being constructed just outside the boundary of the designated High Security Zone, effectively expanding the military's footprint onto fresh civilian land under a new pretext rather than within the area it already controls. For residents of Valikamam North, the construction represents not a winding down of the occupation but its extension, even as the government continues to promise the release of seized land.
Vasavilan lies within the heavily militarised Valikamam North region, where the Sri Lankan military continues to occupy vast tracts of Tamil land more than seventeen years after the end of the armed conflict. More than 6,000 families from Valikamam North remain displaced, with over 2,700 acres still held by the military under the designation of a High Security Zone. The seized lands across the region include homes, temples, schools, churches and agricultural fields, many of which residents have found destroyed or rendered unusable when fragments have been returned.
Successive governments have promised the return of the land and delivered only piecemeal releases. Sri Lankan president Anura Kumara Dissanayake and the National People's Power campaigned on commitments to release High Security Zone lands, and Fisheries Minister Ramalingam Chandrasekar announced a phased release programme earlier this year, citing "extraordinary circumstances" during the war as justification for the retention of private land. The construction of a new permanent military installation on seized civilian land at Vasavilan, even as those promises are made, has deepened scepticism among landowners that the occupation will end.
