As the lawyer authorised to watch the interests of the family of which the sole surviving member is Prashanthi, aged 21, it is my duty to apprise the general public of the facts relating to the horrendous crime committed against Krishanthi, her brother, mother and a neighbour at Kaithady.
Krishanthi (aged 18) had sat for one paper in Chemistry and after attending the funeral of a friend who was knocked down and killed by an army jeep was alleged to have been stopped at the sentry point between Kaithady and Chemmany and taken into the camp and allegedly raped by 11 soldiers and subsequently murdered. Her mother Rasammah who was functioning as the vice Principal of Muthukumarasamy Maha Vidyalaya aged 59 and Krishanthi's brother Pranaban aged 16 and a neighbour Sithamparan aged 35, on receipt of the news of Krishanthi's detention at the sentry point, hurriedly went to the point. They too were detained and subsequently murdered.
When the news of the disappearance of these four persons reached Colombo, Krishanthi's relatives contacted me and sought for advice. Numerous telephone calls to the Defence Ministry went unheeded and I contacted Joseph Pararajasingham M.P. for Batticaloa who was of immense assistance to me in regard to the Jaffna final year Medical students' dispute wherein I was the Petitioner on behalf of the 55 final year students before the Supreme Court. Mr. Pararajasingham on receipt of my telephone call regarding the disappearance of Krishanthi, at the Kaithady checkpoint, contacted the Defence Ministry on various occasions, but there was no satisfactory response. He was therefore reluctantly compelled to raise this matter in the House. There was no satisfactory response from the Defence Ministry but dates were asked for and finally the assurance was given that the report would be furnished on October 24. In the meantime Mr. Pararajasingham as a member of a Parliamentary delegation, left for Ireland. And on the 20th inst. the bodies of the four victims were exhumed and thereafter after repeated appeals by Kumar Ponnampalam and myself, the four bodies were brought to Colombo in a highly decomposed condition. Mr. Ponnampalam made repeated telephone calls to the morgue inquiring the bodies had arrived, but the person or persons on duty misled him by saying that the bodies had not arrived till midnight, though the O.I.C. Kankesanturai police station said in his statement to the J.M.O. Colombo that the bodies were brought to the morgue at 8.00 p.m.
Mr. Ponnampalam as Senior Counsel, assisted by me attended the inquiry before the J.M.O. The J.M.O was extremely courteous and permitted both of us to view the four bodies along with two close relatives of the deceased. The bodies of Krishanti and the son were in a mangled state and highly decomposed. The other bodies were also decomposed. The relatives were told by the A.S.P. Maradana who was present that there was a magisterial order that the bodies should be handed back to the D.I.G. Colombo and not to the relatives. After considerable argument wherein Mr. Ponnampalam played a major role, the Police required the relatives to bury or cremate the four bodies under their supervision within two hours, failing which the instructions were that they should be buried at state expense. I took the responsibility of advising the relatives to cremate the bodies immediately and not to earn the lasting disgrace of permitting the bodies to be buried at state expense. All four bodies were bundled into a single coffin and cremated. But no one was permited to have a look at the bodies prior to the cremation.
It is painful to note that a certain Tamil weekly had mentioned that apart from raising the matters in Parliament Mr. Pararajasingham did not pursue the matter further. It is far from the truth. He strove his utmost to unravel the mystery and he has earned the undying gratitude of one and all for his gesture.
I must hasten to state that Mr. Ponnampalam rendered invaluable services in this matter. He displayed grit, courage and determination which is sadly lacking amongst some of our Tamil leaders. He is shell pursuing the matter relentlesly.
It is also regrettable that a longstanding Tamil party awoke from its Rip Van Winkle slumber and took up this matter with the President nearly 40 days later.
It is true that one of its representatives called over at the residence of the sole surviving member of the family, Prashanthi, aged 21 two days after the bodies were cremated and expressed his sympathies and did inquire what assistance they could offer her. Another M.P. from another Tamil group had also reportedly called on her on the same day.
I consider it my sacred duty to apprise the public of the facts as I find that some distorted news are appearing in some newspapers.
Announcements are being made over the SLBC to inform the listeners about amalgamation of some Sinhala services and the starting of a new service.
As SLBC is having too many Sinhala channels, although it does not have enough quality programmes to fill those channels, it would be a great service to the educated Sinhala listeners, if the number of channels are pruned. What is the purpose of starting a new channel? Is it to create high positions for so called "Supporters" of the Government?
After this Government came to office, SLBC spent millions of rupees to pay compensation to many past and present employees who said they had been victimised by the previous government. Did those victimisations actually take place? Did the Government properly check the bona fide of those claims? The general feeling among the employees is that many who got those compensations cheated the Government. Whatever it is, the ultimate losers are the general public. By giving these "Supporters" undue benefits, the government loses its real (silent) supporters tenfold.
Coming back to the introduction of the new channels, why did SLBC spend its funds on outside premises when it has enough studio facilities within its head quarters?
The SLBC now faces a big problem in finding talented programme staff to run its current services and many people who just can spill out whatever comes into their mouths have become announcers. SLBC is trying to compete with some private radio stations by going down to the same low levels of presentation and language usage. What listeners expect from the SLBC is not that. It should raise the level and the quality of its audience without using vulgarism to become popular among a few hundreds of listeners. They should know that the foolish and silly talking between announcers and reading unending lists of households, relatives and friends is not good, decent or responsible broadcasting. It only caters to a very few number of listeners who get their egos boosted up when they hear their own names broadcast over the radio, while for the majority it is an unpleasant chattering and waste of much valuable air time.
The SLBC, being a people's organisation, should act as an exemplary institution which upholds our cultural values while providing decent entertainment and service to the people without being a party to destroying our traditional values. It should also not be an organisation which caters to the whims and fancies of high position seeking supporters.
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