Barely a couple of hours after the UN Security
Council called on the LTTE to renounce its continued
conscription of children as LTTE soldiers, an irate mother of a
seventeen-year old Tamil girl has assisted troops at the
MUHAMALAI Entry/Exit point in order to rescue her child from
LTTE grips while her daughter was being abducted on 25 February
2005 around 1.15 p.m.
The victim’s mother, MAHENDRAN WASANTHI
(42), after learning that LTTE men were preparing a forged
identity card to alter her daughter’s real age after she was
abducted by LTTE, has provided a photo of her teenage daughter
to the MUHAMALAI Entry/Exit point, MANIPAY Police station, Human
Rights Office and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
in JAFFNA., pleading them to help rescue her loved one.
Teenage girl’s LTTE abductor, MAHALINGAM
MANIVANNAN who was also arrested at the Entry/Exit point along
with the girl, has gone on record saying to the Police that LTTE,
within February (2005) month alone, has managed to abduct over
20 such minors and subsequently detained them under an LTTE
woman cadre, named MADHAVEE at a transit in PALLAI before those
minors were handed over to LTTE women’s ‘corps’ at KILINOCHCHI
or elsewhere for LTTE weapon training.
The victimized girl has allegedly fallen
victim to LTTE when she approached KOKKUVIL, POTHPATHY LTTE
office after she reportedly developed a personal dispute with an
unknown party.
During her stay at the LTTE office on 23
February 2005, those LTTE men had duped the girl in question
into believing that they (LTTE) were in the process of issuing a
new Identity Card to her, similar to those being issued to
JAFFNA residents.
Both teenage girl and the LTTE abductor
were arrested by the Police at MUHAMALAI Entry/Exit while she
was being abducted and handed over subsequently to the KODIKAMAM
Police for further investigations.
The girl was to be handed over to her parents
after necessary investigations were over.
The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) was also
to be intimated.
Name & particulars of the victim are withheld
for obvious security reasons and questions of human rights. (SLArmywebsite)