Northern Province Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran fears Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has not released Tamil political prisoners as he does not want to anger the Sinhalese majority ahead of elections later this year.

Speaking to the New York Times, the chief minister said dozens of political prisoners could be released immediately but expressed doubts over the government's pledges to release detainees.

“I’m talking of a history of not living up to promises in the past,” Mr. Wigneswaran said. “The prime minister wants to play for time because the elections are coming.”

The National Freedom Front has accused the Sri Lankan government of fuelling a "separatist agenda", over its agreement to conduct a domestic probe.

Spokesperson Mohamed Muzammil said the six-month extension to the UN probe into Sri Lanka was a farce and the government's promise to conduct a domestic investigation was a betrayal against Sri Lankans, Ceylon Today reported.

The Jaffna University Students’ Union (JUSU) expressed its disappointment at the deferral of a UN inquiry into mass atrocities committed against Tamils and announced it will be staging a protest rejecting a domestic Sri Lankan investigation on Tuesday.

The postponement of the inquiry had caused the Tamil people “disappointment with a great pain,” said a statement released by the JUSU. “6 years passed; there has been no justice for our people ruthlessly massacred by the Sri Lankan government using its military machines.”

The statement went on to reject any domestic mechanism announced by the Sri Lankan government, stating that “it is nothing but an attempt to protect criminals and a preparation to destabilise human rights issues for us Eelam Tamils.”

At least seven people, hailing from the North-East were arrested at the Bandaranaike Airport near Colombo over the last two weeks, according to Thinakkural.

A group of six people, who were exiled in Italy, were assaulted by the Terrorism Investigation Department (TID) at the airport, with one 31 year old man from Puttur, Northern Province hospitalised. The others were arrested and had charges filed against them by a court in Negombo and are being held on remand.

The British Deputy High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Laura Davies, described in a blog post her recent trip to the Vanni, highlighting that army welfare shops were everywhere, with private businesses "not easy to find".

"Unlike in the rest of Sri Lanka, it is impossible to ignore how recent the end of the conflict was and how raw some of the scars remain," she said, adding that there were "a lot of [Sri Lankan] military memorials".

"The need to grieve and to know what happened to missing loved ones remains overwhelming. I met ex-combatants who were socially and economically excluded. Promised releases of political prisoners are slower than people would like," she said.

The Sri Lankan navy will “assist in the conducting” of the annual St Anthony’s Church festival in the North of the island, reported the Ministry of Defence.

The annual St Anthony’s Church feast is scheduled to be held in Kachchatheevu on 29 Feb.

Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence said that under the “the direction of the Defence Ministry and supervision of Navy Commander Vice Admiral Jayantha Perera” the navy would be assisting in the festivities.

The festival draws thousands of people from across the North-East of the island and India.

The military's ongoing involvement in Tamil affairs almost 6 years after the end of the armed conflict has been widely condemned with numerous calls for the new president, Maithripala Sirisena to demilitarise the North-East.

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