Sri Lankan police interrogated and threatened the chair of a divisional council in Kilinochchi over the naming of a road after a former cadre of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The interrogation was in regards to the naming of a street in Santhapuram as ‘Vettri Lane’, after the nom-de-guerre of a local former combatant who had undergone the Sri Lankan government’s notorious ‘rehabilitation’ programme after the end of the armed conflict.
Sri Lankan police questioned the chair of Karaichchi divisional council and warned him to take down the new board or to change the road name to reflect the former cadre’s birth name.
Should the chair fail to change the name of the road, he would be pursued for attempting to revive the LTTE, the police threatened.
The threats came just days after the arrest of the Mayor of Jaffna on similar trumped up charges caused outrage worldwide.
