As the LTTE launches attacks daily, the military has continued search operations and arrest of Tiger suspects. Local people complain that arrest procedures under Emergency regulations are not being followed. According to the Human Rights Commission,of the 75 people arrested in Batticaloa between January and April, 62 are in custody, but the whereabouts of 13 people are unknown.
Four Muslim youths were arrested in mid-April at Oddamavady, north of Batticaloa town. Police say a fifth man, detained in Kattankudy, was in possession of a large quantity of explosives. In a search operation in Pandiruppu on 23 April, over 500 people were arrested and 100 were detained for further enquiries. Following a Tiger attack on a naval vessel two days earlier, shells were fired from Vavunativu Army camp towards Kannakudah. The Kannaki Amman Hindu temple was damaged.
Ten policemen, including an Assistant Superintendent were killed and four others were injured in Gravelkande, 29 miles south-east of Polonnaruwa town on 7 April. Reports say the Tigers earlier shot dead two Sinhalese farmers and ambushed a police unit that rushed to the scene. Six policemen were wounded a week later in a bomb attack on a jeep at Savalakadai, south of Batticaloa.
People arranging to go abroad are under increasing pressure from the security forces. S Nathan, travelling to Colombo from Kaluvanchikudi, to go abroad was taken into custody along with his wife and child at Welikanda on 7 April. Batticaloa MP P Selvarajah has complained to the Committee of Inquiry into Undue Arrest and Harassment (CIUAH) that E Suntharalingam and S Suvendran, who had arranged to travel abroad were arrested by the STF on 9 March, when they went to Wellaveli to bid farewell to relatives. They were later killed. The STF claims that they were LTTE members. Security forces are currently compiling a list of people who have gone abroad from Batticaloa.
LTTE’s Pistol Group, which carries out selective assassinations, shot and wounded a policeman and a civilian in Valaichenai on 17 April. Former PLOTE cadre N Ratheeswaran, 18, was killed in a Tiger grenade attack in Batticaloa town on 3 May. Four civilians suffered serious injuries.
The LTTE launched a mortar attack on Welikanda police station on 2 May killing two soldiers. Shells exploded near the Welikanda hospital and patients were removed to safe places. Part of the hospital was damaged.