Jaffna university students killing:Deceased student’s fatherfiles proxy to intervene

By S.S.Selvanayagam

The Court of Appeal this week granted time till 30 June for the intervenient petitioner as well as the respondents in the Jaffna university student murder case to file objections. SinnathuraiVijayakumar, the father of one of the deceased students, was granted a little over a month to file objections with regard to the appeal filed by the five police officers that were arrested in connection with theshooting incident where two Jaffna University students were allegedly gunned down.

The matter came up before Justice S.Thurairaja. 

The suspected police officers are seeking the Court to transfer their case out of the Northern and Eastern provinces.

They are also seeking the Court to issue an interim order restraining the continuation of their case before Jaffna Magistrate’s Court until the final determination of their application.

The police officers implicated in the said shooting incident (1) D.SarathBandaraDissanayake, (2) E.M.Jayawardene, (3) P. NavaratnaBandara, (4) S.A.Chandana Kumara Pathirana and (5) ThangarasaLankamaman in their petition cited the Jaffna Police Station OIC, OIC of the Criminal Investigation Department and the Attorney General as respondents.

TiranthaWalalaliyadde PC instructed by ShashikaMithunaArachchi appeared for the petitioners, while DSC ShanakaWijesinghe appeared for the Attorney General. M.A.Sumanthiran instructed by Moahan Balendra appears for the aggrieved party.

The petitioning police officers are suspectedof allegedly causing the death of two students of the Jaffna University, namelyVijayakumarSulakshan (24) of Kandarodai in Chunnakam, Jaffna, and NadarajahGajan (23) from Iranaimadu of Kilinochchi, and are now remanded at the Anuradhapura Remand Prisons.

The petitioners plead that their life would be endangered if they continued to attend Jaffna Courts.

Both victims were third year students at theFaculty of Arts, Jaffna University, and were studying political science and journalism.On the night of 20 October 2016, it is reported that they were allegedly gunned down by the police at a police check point at Kulappiddy Junction, Kokuvil, Jaffna.The students sustained fatal injuries after they were shot at by the police for disobeying orders to stop their motorcycle at the road block.

Although police initially denied shooting the students, a post-mortem report, however, found bullets in one of the bodies.

Meanwhile, the father,SinnaduraiVijayakumar, of deceased student VijayakumarSuluckshan had filed proxy to intervene in terms of the rights conferred by the provisions of Assistance to and Protection of Victims of Crime and Witnesses Act.