Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA) leader MP Mano Ganesan announced his party’s support for the full-day hartal scheduled for Friday, called by the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK). He expressed this support in a statement issued to the media today.
The protest demands a fair investigation into the recent incident involving five Tamil youths called by soldiers to the Muthaiyan Kattu army camp on February 8. One of them, Kapil Raj, was later found dead in a nearby pond on February 9, while the remaining four have alleged severe assault and torture by the military. ITAK has also called for the reduction of the military presence in the North and East.
MP Mano Ganesan urged President and Defence Minister Anura Kumara Dissanayake to initiate an immediate investigation, take legal action against those responsible, and withdraw excess troops from the North and East. He emphasised that the core message of the hartal is the need to reduce military presence, warning that troops involved in an ethnic war would continue to harbour communal bias. He suggested redeploying them to development work in southern Sri Lanka, such as irrigation, road construction, housing, hotel operations, agriculture, and market management.
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