Muslim IDPs’ predicament

It is the fact of the facts as mentioned in today’s editorial of The Island that around 100,000 Northern Muslims expelled at the gun-point by the liberation tigers of Tamil ealam (LTTE) in the month of October in1990 and some of them have been now resettled in the controversial Kallaru area in the North.

It is ideal to mention the injustice caused for Northern Muslim in the country at this juncture. The majority of displaced Muslims shifted to Puttalam and some parts of the country displaying the label in their necks as Northern Muslim Refugees. These people were really downtrodden, underprivileged, poverty-stricken, and horror-stricken, helpless, hopeless and one step further a marginalised lot in the community in the country after the forceful displacement from their homelands in 1990. It has lapsed 30 years since the displacement but still the people are left on the lurch in the process of improper resettlement of Muslims in the North.

In fact, the resettlement process really initiated after the terrorist activities defeated in the country on March 11, 2009 by the present Prime Minister and then the President of the country Mahinda Rajapaksa. Since the Internally Displaced people formally abbreviated as (IDPs) gradually commenced their resettlements in the Northern Province, they had to encounter and overcome numerous practical issues in the process of resettlements, one of the most preeminent and prominent problems was lack of lands, which was caused by the natural increase in the population of (IDP) Muslims.

A single family when they displaced in 1990 had comprised on an average four or five members and now the same single family has developed into four or five individual families after three decades of displaced life. Some of these people from these extended families are now being resettled in the Kallaru resettlement area. Hence, it is the duty and responsibility of the government to make necessary arrangements to resolve the plight position and grievances of resettled people who are currently staying in Kallaru area before evicting them from their new homes.

M. JALALDEEN ISFAN,

POTKERNY