Police Chief rushes to Jaffna following attacks

Latest assault, too, led by ex-Tiger

Police yesterday claimed that they had apprehended seven out of the eleven member armed gang involved in the latest attack on two policemen at Kopai, Jaffna on Sunday including its leader, a former LTTE member.

The six other members, too, were former LTTE cadres who completed the rehabilitation programme conducted by the government for the LTTE combatants soon after the war.

The injured policemen Surendran and Dhammika are being treated at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital. The policemen have, in their statements, said that a gang armed with swords and clubs attacked them near Nandavil Amman kovil in the Kopai area.

They had been inquiring into a public complaint when they came under attack. The attackers came on four motorcycles.

According to police other attackers have fled the area.

IGP Pujith Jayasundara visited Jaffna yesterday and addressed a meeting of senior police officers convened at a short notice. He had been briefed on the current situation and the trend of some elements attacking policemen posted in the North. At the meeting some officers had pointed out that though incidents looked isolated, there was a clearly visible trend of policemen being targeted, a senior officer said.

The IGP had issued fresh instructions to his officers and men to counter the situation at the meeting and thereafter visited the injured policemen at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, sources said.

In a daring attack on July 22 two policemen were injured and one of them succumbed to his injuries when an ex-LTTEer shot at them while they were providing security to Jaffna High Court Judge Manickavasagar Illancheliyan, at Nallur.

Sources said there had been several incidents in the Jaffna peninsula since the second week of July with mobs causing damage to a police post and a house belonging to a policeman in Nelliady.

Police Spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekera said there had been several attacks on police personnel and some of those involved in those attacks had been apprehended and there were yet more to be identified. Four teams of policemen had been deployed to trace the seven other suspects who had fled the area after assaulting the two policemen. Seven of the 11 suspects had been apprehended, he said.

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