A Presidential Commission tasked with investigating abductions, killings and disappearances in all parts of the country on Tuesday (June 16) said that though the situation in the Ampara and Trincomalee districts had improved, Batticaloa remained a cause for concern.

Retired Justice Mahanama Tilakaratne yesterday told a press conference at the BMICH that the police deployed in the Batticaloa district had to depend on the army to maintain law and order. He said that differences between various Tamil groups, particularly factions headed by Karuna Amman and Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, had caused trouble.

When compared with the situation in the East a year ago, there had been a marked improvement in the conditions in the region, he said.

Responding to our queries, he said though some government officials in charge of civil administration in the Batticaloa district had called for immediate relaxation of existing security measures, the police wanted the measures to continue as part of their overall strategy to counter a possible attempt by the LTTE to re-group.

He said that the involvement of former LTTE cadres in two cases of abduction and killing of girls in a bid to collect a ransom in the East was evidence that a lot had to be done to restore normalcy.

In the Batticaloa district, the police maintain 12 stations and 74 check points.

In the neighbouring Trincomalee district, there are 14 police stations in the Trncomalee and Kantale divisions. Of the 11 road blocks along the Trincomalee-Habara road, only two remain now, he said.

According to him, police stations in the Eastern Province had received 331 cases of abductions, disappearances, unidentified bodies and unsolved killings this year up to May 31. Of them, 129 had been reported from the Batticaloa district.