Thousands demand justice for Tamil man killed by police near Paris

More than a thousand people marched through the streets of Bobigny, in the northern suburbs of Paris, on Sunday in tribute to Puvaneswaran Vaithilingam, a French Tamil man who was shot dead by a police officer last month.

Dressed in white, the colour of mourning, the marchers walked in silence to demand truth and justice over his death.

The procession, organised as a "white march" by a collective of community organisers, gathered from 1pm on the square in front of the Pablo Neruda hall at Bobigny town hall. Following speeches, the march set off at 2.30pm towards the Seine-Saint-Denis Prefecture, led at its head by Vaithilingam's family, his brother, his wife and their two children, who walked alongside elected representatives and mayors.

The event began with a minute of silence, observed in tribute both to all victims of war and in memory of a young person whose death, the organisers said, had moved the wider community. Participants described a procession marked throughout by calm and dignity.

Vaithilingam, known to the community as Kutty, was 43 years old.

He was killed on Saturday 30 May at a workers' hostel on Rue Hector-Berlioz in Bobigny, where he lived. According to the Paris police prefecture, three officers from the anti-crime brigade had been called to the building over a dispute, and as the lift doors opened on the sixth floor they were confronted by a man armed with two knives. The prefecture said one officer was forced to "use his service weapon, striking (the man) in the abdomen", and that he had advanced towards the officers brandishing the knives despite repeated orders to drop them. Le Parisien reported that two shots were fired. Vaithilingam collapsed in the corridor and, despite the intervention of emergency medical services, died at the scene.

The Bobigny public prosecutor's office said the General Inspectorate of the National Police, the body known in France as "the police of the police", had been notified, and that an investigation had been opened into violence with a weapon resulting in death.

Accounts gathered by the French newspaper L'Humanité report witnesses stating that Vaithilingam had been suffering a psychotic episode throughout the day, which neighbours in the hostel had initially managed themselves.

While the prefecture maintained that he was charging at the three officers, witnesses cited by L'Humanité said one officer fired as the police were stepping out of the lift, and that another person had been in the lift acting as a buffer between the officers and Vaithilingam, leading them to regard the shooting as disproportionate to the immediate threat.

His death has caused distress within the Eelam Tamil community in France, one of the largest in the diaspora, which numbers in the tens of thousands and is concentrated in the Paris region. The community was reported to be all the more affected because Vaithilingam came from a family connected to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the movement that fought for Eelam Tamil self-determination.

Before the procession set off, a series of speakers addressed the gathering on the square in front of the Pablo Neruda hall. Ali Diourra, member of parliament and mayor of La Courneuve, spoke on behalf of elected representatives committed to justice and truth, alongside Sabrina Ganeswaran, deputy mayor of La Courneuve.

The mayor of Bobigny and his elected representatives also expressed their support, and Divitha Selvanesan, an elected representative serving under the mayor of Bobigny, addressed the crowd, as did several local Bobigny officials who had known Kutty personally and walked for the entire route. Suharna Markandu, a former municipal representative, read an address on behalf of Stéphane Troussel, president of the General Council of Seine-Saint-Denis.

Vaithilingam's brother spoke with great emotion, calling for a fair and impartial investigation into a death he described as unjust. Sharuka Thevakumar, a jurist and judicial expert at the Versailles Court of Appeal, spoke of the importance of relentlessly pursuing the truth, reminding those gathered that justice is a fundamental right the family and community could not relinquish.

Nantakumar, president of the Franco-Tamil association, underlined the importance of the gathering as an act of tribute and solidarity, and Mahinthan Sivasubramaniam, a municipal representative, closed the speeches by highlighting the unity of the Franco-Tamil community in the face of a tragedy that had touched one of its own.

At the end of the rally, in front of the Seine-Saint-Denis Prefecture, Vaithilingam's brother took the floor a final time to thank those who had taken part.

The organisers described the turnout as one of the most significant mobilisations of the Franco-Tamil community in the Île-de-France region in recent years, and noted in particular the participation of its younger generation.