Suresh Kumar and Ranjith Kumar incident

Suresh Kumar and Ranjith Kumar were minority Sri Lankan Tamils working for the Uthayan – a Tamil newspaper published from Jaffna. Uthayan has been specifically targeted for its independent reporting by the Sri Lankan military and the paramilitary group EPDP.[1][2] They were killed on 2 May 2006 during an attack on the Uthayan office.

Background

In Jaffna – which is under Sri Lankan army control – journalists, human rights activists and civilians have lived under constant fear. These killing are part of series of killing, abduction and attacks on the Tamil Media in Sri Lanka.[3][4][5] These killings, abductions and threats are seen as part of the dirty war launched by Mahinda Rajapaksa government.[6][7]

Incident and reaction

Suresh Kumar and Ranjith Kumar were killed after a Uthayan published a cartoon mocking Douglas Devananda the leader of EPDP a paramilitary group allied with the Sri Lankan Army.[8] Armed Gunmen entered the office of Uthayan in army controlled Jaffna on 2 May 2006 and demanded to see the editor R. Kuhanathan and finding he was not there opened fire and the two employees died instantly.[9][10][11]

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.