As an overwhelming majority of Jaffna University students, demanding release of the detained student leaders, are still boycotting classes despite SL military intimidation on University administration and the teachers to resume the classes, the officers of the occupying military stationed across Jaffna have instructed the Divisional Secretaries to gather residential details of Jaffna University students through Village (GS) Officers, civil sources in Jaffna said. There are also reports that the SL military was summoning students to nearby military camps and instructing them to attend the classes. Several students in Vadamaraadchi East have been taken to SL military camps and threatened against staying in their homes.
“You will soon realize the amount of power given to the military,” was the message of the SL Army officers, who attacked the students of the peaceful protest on 28 November, said Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Mr E. Saravanabhvan, who witnessed the attack on that day.
Since then, the SL military commander in Jaffna Maj Gen Hathurusinghe was dealing with the University administration. At least two meetings were held by him at Palaali military base with the Vice Chancellor, deans and heads of departments.
A delegation from the University of Jaffna that visited the detained students at Welikande later met the SL Defence Secretary and presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa who told the delegation to resume the classes. Following that, the SL military commander in Jaffna also summoned the deans and heads of department to pass the same message.
In the meantime, at least 48 incidents of abduction-styled arrests have taken place in the peninsula targeting former LTTE members and students.
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