The father of a victim in the photos released by Channel- 4 in mid May identified one of them as his son, a combatant of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), arrested by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Mu’l’livaaikkaal on 18 and 19 May 2009, in an interview to TamilNet in Jaffna. The father further told TamilNet that the LTTE combatants could not have been arrested in April 2009 as it was reported in the media as he had met his son on 11 May in 2009.
Channel-4 had released the photos of persons who had been denuded after arrest and held in a bunker by SLA in Vanni. Many of the persons are said to be LTTE combatants.
The father of the victim who identified one youth in the photo as his son told TamilNet that he had last met his son on 11May 2009 and that his son had entreated him to get out of the warzone.
Commenting on the media report that the victims in the photos had been arrested in April 2009 he said that it was improbable and could not be true as he had met his son on 11 May 2009. He suspects that SLA must have arrested his son on 18 or 19 May 2009.
He did not wish to inform the media about this because he was concerned about his and his son’s safety, the father said.
After moving out of Vanni he had been held in one of the SLA detention camps in Vavuniyaa and later allowed to join his family in Jaffna where he lives now.
Meanwhile, the 7-year-old daughter of a 40-year-old victim of Vanni War identified her father from the photos released by Channel-4 mid May and published in local papers in Jaffna, on 24 May.
TamilNet had met the wife of the victim who was identified as Thuraichamy Harikrishnan of Koomaangku’lam in Vavuniyaa.
His wife, uprooted from Vanni and unable to cope with the losses, is living in a an orphanage in Jaffna in a physically weak condition, undergoing a psychological trauma.
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