Sri Lanka government’s archaeological department with the help of Sri Lanka Army is constructing more structures in Thirvadinilai in Maathakal in Vallikaamam North SLA High Security Zone (HSZ), in addition to a Buddhist temple erected in October 2009. This area had been the home of Tamil families living there since ancient times evicted twenty years ago when Valikaamam North HSZ was established by SLA. Now the families are not allowed even to see their own places in Maathakal while thousands of Sinhala Buddhist pilgrims visit the newly built temple daily which now has become a tourist attraction in Jaffna peninsula, sources in Jaffna said.
Sri Lanka president’s wife Shiranthi Rajapakse and his son Namal Rajapakse had in October 2009 brought a statue of Changkamiththa, Emperor Aoska’s daughter and the first woman Buddhist missionary to Ceylon, to be enshrined in the newly built Buddhist temple in Maathakal in the HSZ.
During the same time Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse had appointed Rev. Warapitiya Rahula Thero as the curator for archaeological artifacts in Jaffna peninsula in an attempt to fabricate evidence to show the Sinhalese masses and the outer world that traces of Buddhism in Jaffna peninsula are exclusively Sinhalese.
Rev. Rahula Thero will go into action following in the footsteps of the successive Sinhalese regimes which have tried to rewrite the history of Sri Lanka in favour of Sinhalese Buddhists, the sources added.
The pilgrims from South entering through the front line check post of the army HSZ in Thellippalai go to Keerimalai and then to the Buddhist temple in Thiruvadinilai in Maathakal where Changamiththa’s statue is enshrined.
Meanwhile, SLA does not permit the uprooted families from Thiruvadinilai to go no further than Keerimalai and they now just watch the thousands of pilgrims going to their places passing them.
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