PM urged to allow Mullivaikaal commemorative events

As war-affected people in the North and East are preparing to remember their war dead on May 18, the Chair of Northern Provincial Council wrote to newly appointed Prime Minister  Ranil Wickremesinghe urging him to ensure people are allowed to remember their loved ones who were killed during the final phases of the war in 2009. 

Chair of now-defunct Northern Provincial Council wrote to the PM Wickremesinghe on Friday as Mullaithivu police have taken steps to obstruct commemorative events organized by civil society groups and relatives of enforced disappearance persons. "This is very unfortunate and is tantamount to the denial of our fundamental religious and civil rights,"

For the last 12 years, the war-affected families consistently staged collective commemorative events throughout the month of May across the two provinces marking the memories of those who were killed in 2009, the Chairman noted. 

"As Hindus and Buddhists, we are fully aware of the curses of the souls of those killed violently in past. Obviously, karma rebounds and the whole country is suffering from the karmic effects of the curses of the souls haunting and hovering it," Chairman Sivagnanam said in his letter while stressing that both religions are of the view that we pay homage and pray for the departed souls so that those souls would rest in peace. 

The letter was written in the wake of a series of civilian-led initiatives that are currently underway to commemorate the war victims with a collective ceremony organized at Mullivaikaal on May 18.