In addition to enquiries into the circumstances that led to the massacre and about persons directly or indirectly involved, including the conduct of officers, the Commission is mandated to make recommendations on preventive measures, the criteria for admission to rehabilitation and the location of rehabilitation centres. The demand of Colombo NGOs that the UN should be involved in the enquiry has been rejected.
The Committee of Inquiry into Undue Arrest and Harassment (CIUAH) voiced its concern in mid-March over the Defence Ministry’s practice of sending people to rehabilitation centres even where there is no evidence of involvement with the LTTE. Emergency regulations permit the Defence Secretary to detain a person indefinitely for rehabilitation by a Rehabilitation Order. Amnesty International says it is possible for people detained for preventive or investigative reasons to find themselves subject to lengthy Rehabilitation Orders.
Meanwhile, in the Chemmani mass graves case on 13 March at the Colombo Magistrates Court, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) revealed that tenders had been called from laboratories in Britain for DNA testing. The CID say that the Defence Ministry has not allocated funds for DNA testing.
Eighteen skeletal remains were found at Chemmani in Jaffna after a convicted soldier in the Krishanthy Kumarasamy murder case revealed the locations of the mass graves. Five suspects are in custody and a sixth policeman named Abdul Nazar has fled abroad. The fate of over 400 people disappeared in Jaffna in 1996 during Army occupation of the peninsula remains unknown.
The Supreme Court released three people including Manickam Gangeswary and her two year-old child on 27 March following a fundamental rights application. These Batticaloa residents were arrested on suspicion that they were relatives of the woman suicide bomber who injured President Chandrika in Colombo in December 1999. DNA tests have revealed that they are not blood relatives of the suicide bomber.