Scribes under attack
 

Sunday Crime by Jayampathy Jayasinghe

It was around 12.30. p.m. last Tuesday when several mortars and artillery shell fire fell on the convoy of vehicles accompanying a group of journalists visiting Mirusuavil in Jaffna. The village is located about 40 kilometres from the Palali town, beyond the forward defence lines.

Although the army personnel acted quickly to evacuate journalists to safer territory four army soldiers died when the mortars fell on them while another was seriously wounded. The wounded soldier succumbed to his injuries after being admitted to the Palali hospital. Altogether about 24 soldiers sustained injuries in the attack.

A spokesman for the Media Centre for National Security said around 24 journalists from Radio Television stations including three foreign journalist were airlifted to Palali and later taken to Mirusavil area. The idea was to show journalists the newly captured areas from the LTTE. However when they were on an inspection tour at Mirusuavil they were fired upon by the LTTE cadres.

The artillery and mortar fire fell exactly on the spot where journalists were being shown a haul of captured weapons of the LTTE. "Obviously the LTTE intelligence would have known beforehand that a group of journalists were touring the area. It just cannot be dismissed as accidental fire under any circumstances " the defence spokesman reiterated.

One major question

The incident had occurred around 12.20. p.m when the LTTE cadres had fired from the direction of Palali. The big question that is looming in the defence circles is, as to how the LTTE came to know the exact location for them to fire upon. Did anyone including civilians leak out information to the enemy?

If that was the case it could be construed as a serious breach of security.

It would have endangered the lives of both military and media personnel in the area. No doubt this aspect will have to be investigated by the army. However none of the 40 odd print media journalists were able to proceed on that tour due to lack of seating capacity in the plane.

The trip was organised by the Media Centre for National Security to show media personnel the re-captured territory of Muhamalai and Kilai areas from the LTTE.

Meanwhile, in another development the unflagged gigantic ghost ship that was sunk in the eastern seas last Monday was suspected to be carrying a huge stockpile of armaments for the LTTE. The ship was sailing towards Vakkarai in Batticoloa around 7.30.am. when it was spotted by the Navy and then sunk with the help of the Air-force fire. Around 150-200 tons of cargo including missiles and armaments were believed to be in the ship.

Naval gunboats

When the ship was alerted by radio to identify itself and disclose its destination, the ship had sped failing to answer the call. The ship was merely trying to avoid the naval gunboats. It was at this stage the Navy had alerted the airforce command about the rogue ship sailing towards Batticoloa.

The naval ship after engaging the rogue ship in an exchange of fire had given chase for nearly five hours before it caught up with the ship around 12.30.pm. Plumes of black smoke was seen rising from the ship after it was being hit by air craft and naval fire. This was clearly seen in a video footage.

Around ten LTTE cadres who were on board the ship is said to have perished when it was attacked. The Naval authorities suspect that the armaments were shipped from Indonesia to the LTTE. Had the ship arrived in the eastern coast with the load of armaments, the terrorists would have launched a massive attack on the security forces with the newly acquired firepower.

The frightening scenario is whether they had the capability to acquire SAM missiles or any other type of anti aircraft missiles from arms traders in the Far -East. More sea patrols are needed today to prevent arms being smuggled into the country.