News
Jaffna Magistrate orders excavation of site near kovil for possible mass grave
By Dinasena Rathugamage
Excavations are scheduled to commence tomorrow at a site, where human skeletal remains and clothes were unearthed last week, to ascertain whether it is a mass grave.
Jaffna Magistrate V. R. Sivaram last week ordered the police to commence excavations at the site near Pannai Sri Meenachchi Amman Kovil at Kottadi, Jaffna. The Magistrate also ordered that the site be provided round the clock police protection.
The site is on a private land and its resident found a human bone with few pieces of cloth while digging up the land for cultivation purposes.
Thereafter, the owner of the land informed the police of the find. Police reported the matter to Jaffna Magistrate, who visited the scene with Jaffna Judicial Medical Officer S. Mayuran, and subsequent investigations found several more bone fragments and a skull along with more clothing items indicating that the site could contain more than one skeleton, police said.
After considering the police report the Magistrate, on Friday, ordered that excavations should be done at the site.