“Missing Dead” found alive: Is Ekneligoda’s story another Kathiravel Thayaparaja who is very much alive
One Kathiravel Thayapararaja was said to have been tortured and killed by the Sri Lankan Security forces on 13th September 2009. The first to publicize the ‘death’ was a pro-LTTE website ‘Vanni Tech Director Thayaparan was killed by Sinhala Nazis’(24 September 2009), then on 13th December 2009 University Teachers for Human Rights – Jaffna (UTHR-J) went a step further to say that Thayapararaja was arrested in Sept 2009, tortured at a security camp in Avissawella, shot on 13th Sept 2009 and died in Kalubowila hospital on 15th September 2009. Then in February 2010 Australian Government Refugee Review Tribunal said Thayapararaja was abducted in September 2009, tortured and killed by state agents. Thayapararaja became a name used to ridicule the Armed Forces and Intelligence until the ‘dead’ man was arrested by the Indian police on 5 May 2014. The same media hype surrounds the ‘missing dead’ Ekneligoda and we can only wonder whether the outcome is likely to be the same. However, the security forces were never exonerated. They are yet to receive a public apology or compensation for the torment they had to suffer being accused of killing a person, with reports galore being sent round the world until Thayapararaja was arrested in India and the world came to know he was neither ‘missing’ or ‘dead’ but had been in ‘hiding’ all along. Are we seeing a repetition?
Kathiravel Thayapararaja & Uthayakala
§ 5 May 2014 – Thayapararaja and 10 others travelling in 2 boats were arrested by Indian police in Dhanushkodi, Tamil Nadu claiming to be ‘refugees’. Each family had paid Rs.1.2m to enter India. One of these ‘refugees’ comprised a LTTE member (K. Sudhakaran) Uthayakala was supposed to be married to an LTTE cadre arrested in India. She is said to have been having an extramarital relationship with Thayapararaja and was his student while he was Director of Vanni Tech. Together both are alleged to have duped people promising them safe passage and employment in UK. They did neither except run off with people’s money. Both are alleged to have links with 2 NGOs run from UK with links to LTTE.
§ 13 Sept 2009 – Thayapararaja said to have been tortured and killed by Sri Lankan security. Accusation made by University Teachers for Human Rights-Jaffna in Special Report No, 34. http://www.uthr.org/SpecialReports/Special%20rep34/Uthr-sp.rp34part6.htm Quoting their report “he would have met Charles Anthony (Prabakaran’s son) now dead, and a few other LTTE figures at board meetings…………..he was arrested in September 2009 in Colombo tortured at a security camp in Avissawella, was shot and injured on 13th September while being taken to court under escort and died at Kalubowila hospital two days later…..” …further quoting the report “such actions introduce a needless element of insecurity into the life of every Tamil. The Government did not even acknowledge the incident, leave alone investigate it, nor did the Press report it”. [comment: When Thayapararaja never died or was never tortured or shot, no wonder the GOSL did not acknowledge the incident or investigate it, but the University for Teachers have yet to apologize for their report]
§ 24 Sept 2009 – Tamilnet article “Vanni Tech Director Thayapararaja killed by Sinhala Nazis” claiming Thayapararaja was “extra-judicially executed” by Sri Lanka intelligence services. He was employed at a US NGO. His wife and kids were under protection of a Church organization in Colombo http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=30310
§ 5 Feb 2010 – Report by Australian Government Refugee Review Tribunal (Country Advice Sri Lanka) http://www.justice.gov/eoir/vll/country/australian_refugee_review_tribunal/sri_lanka/LKA36049.pdf The Australian report is an exact word to word copy of the Tamilnet article
News headlines as a result of spreading lies
§ War without Witnesses “Tamil engineer working for a US Charity (ITTPO) extra-judicially executed near Colombo”http://warwithoutwitness.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=266:tamil-engineer-working-for-a-us-charity-extrajudicially-executed-near-colombo&catid=39:by-war-without-witness&Itemid=62
§ European Centre for Constitutional & Human Rights Report 2010 (page 32) quotes the University Teachers of Human Rights Report http://ebookbrowsee.net/sri-lanka-study-on-criminal-accountability-2010-06-pdf-d634211873
Thayapararajah reappeared from the ‘dead’, from being ‘extra-judicially executed’ from being ‘shot & injured’ while the entire period from 2009 to 2014 local and foreign media went to town claiming Sri Lanka security had tortured and killing him. His name is even on UN/UNHRC reports and quoted by these officials against the Sri Lankan government as well. After the man emerged from the dead, that too by accident having being caught by the Indian police, none of those who made false allegations so much as apologized or made corrections to their statements and reports. For 5 years these lies were spreading all over the world. We can also wonder if under the UNHRC ‘witness protection’ charade there are people who claimed Thayapararaja was abducted and they were witness. We will never know or at least we will have to wait 20 years to know!
If the Indian police had not caught Thayapararajah the whole world would have continued to believe the Sri Lankan security forces had killed him.
You can now wonder how many others have been made ‘missing’ or been ‘killed’ by international reports.
Ekneligoda was reported missing from 24 January 2010. In February 2016, Daily Mirror News Editor Sandun Jayasekera says “I have been serving as a journalist for 30 years now. As far as I know, this person being mentioned has never written any item of news or hosted a tv program or even attended a press conference. The question I have is how Prageeth Ekneligoda became a journalist”. No one has even challenged the Daily Mirror Editors’ statement to provide evidence that Ekneligoda was a journalist. So we have two issues at hand, is he a journalist and the open question of whether the case is another Thayapararajah story.
If Thayapararaja is one example we need to wonder whether ‘journalist’ Ekneligoda whom no one in the journalistic fraternity can vouch has written articles or appeared at any press conferences is in fact missing or has been made ‘missing’.
Shenali D Waduge
§ Kathiravel Thayapararaja was never killed: Accusers must exonerate Sri Lankan Forces http://www.defence.lk/PrintPage.asp?fname=Kathiravel_Thayapararaja_was_never_killed_Accusers_must_exonerate_20140514_02
§ LTTE ‘dead’ resurface:Security Forces deserve public apology and compensation http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2014/05/25/fea01.asp
§ http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2016/02/25/is-prageeth-ekneligoda-a-journalist/
§ http://lib.ohchr.org/HRBodies/UPR/Documents/Session14/LK/JS13_UPR_LKA_S14_2012_JointSubmission13_E.pdf (Joint Submission by Free Media Movement, INFORM Human Rights Documentation Center)
- http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2009/8/46743_space.html
- http://www.amnestyusa.org/pdfs/PetitionSRILANKA.pdf
Man ‘killed’ by Military Intelligence found alive
(Courtesy of The Island)
By Shamindra Ferdinando
Kathiravel Thayapararajah, who was believed to have been abducted and killed by the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) in Sept. 2009 has surfaced recently at Tiruchi special camp, where he spearheaded a successful campaign to secure the release of his wife Udayakala and their three children.
A section of the media as well as some local and foreign NGOs accused the DMI of executing Thayapararajah, head of US funded NGO in the Vanni. No less a person than the then US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs and one-time US Ambassador in Colombo, Robert O. Blake, raised Thayapararajah’s disappearance with the then Sri Lankan government.
Former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa told The Island that those who couldn’t stomach Sri Lanka’s victory over the LTTE propagated lies since the conclusion of the war. The disappearance and subsequent reappearance of Thayaparajah was certainly not an isolated case, Rajapaksa said. According to him, a large number of those who had been categorized as missing live overseas under new identities.
The Tamil Nadu administration early last week ordered the release of Thayapararajah’s family from the special quarantine detention camp at Mandapam, Ramanathapuram. The State government has intervened in the wake of the family launching a nearly week-long fast demanding their release.
However, Thayapararajah hadn’t been released so far. The Hindu quoted People’s Union for Civil Liberties national general secretary V. Suresh as having said the Tamil Nadu government should release Thayapararaj. “Instead of sticking to technicalities, they must release him. His wife and children need him as much as he needs them for their collective well being,” he was quoted as having said.
A senior security official told The Island that both Thayapararajah and his wife Udayakala were wanted here for defrauding several persons wanting to migrate to Europe. In fact, a group of persons during 2014 had sought the intervention of the Indian High Commission here to extradite them back to Colombo.
Tamil Nadu authorities arrested them in early May 2014 after clandestinely arriving there. They were subsequently convicted on the Passport Act.
The University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), the Australian Government Refugee Review Tribunal, Tamilnet and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights among others blamed the Sri Lankan intelligence for Thayapararajah’s disappearance.
Uthayakala, too, accused intelligence services of having executed Thayapararajah.
Intelligence sources told The Island that Thayapararajah had been closely connected to the LTTE, though he wasn’t involved in actual fighting on the ground. Having graduated from the Peradeniya University, Thayapararajah had joined a project run by Vanni Tech, in Kilinochchi, with the financial backing of the US based Tamil Diaspora. The project, launched in 2003, during the Ceasefire Agreement, brokered by Norway, was one of those operations undertaken by the Diaspora, though Thayapararajah joined the Vanni Tech during 2005.
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