India orders demolition of Tamil memorial site

[manlion]

Donating modern scanners to the X-ray division of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, the Indian government had recently ordered the administration of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital to demolish the memorial site situated within the hospital, but the employees were firm in refusing to erase the memory of 21 doctors, nurses and other medical staff together with 46 patients who were slain by the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in one of the brutal massacres witnessed in Jaffna when the invading Indian military was at war with the LTTE in 1987. The medical staff and the kith and kin of the victims, who remembered their co-workers, patients and family members on Monday, demanded a public apology from the Government of India

Meanwhile, a doctor who did not wished to be named, shared the memories of the hospital massacre with the journalists who were present at the memorial site in the hospital on Monday:

“The soldiers of the so-called Indian Peace Keeping Force that entered the X-ray room of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital on 21 October 1987 dragged our medical staff, including senior doctors, one by one, and opened fire on them brutally slaying them as I was witnessing the unfolding massacre as I was hiding away from the Indian soldiers. I will never forget the Indian atrocity committed on us. It is not possible to repress the traumatic memory of the scene where all my senior doctors under whom I started my career being brutally killed,” the doctor said.


135 people were killed at the massacre in Jaffna Hospital on that ill-fated day, according to affidavits gathered by North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR). The human rights body had published the names of 60 persons slain in the massacre in its report ‘IPKF massacres of Tamils in Sri Lanka’.

 

[manlion]

HOSPITAL MASSACRE BY INDIAN ARMY ON DEEPAVALI DAY, OCTOBER 1987

An Eye witness account 21 Oct 1987

"It was a Diwali day - 21 October 1987. In the history of Tamils it will come to be regarded as a "dark day". Due to the military offensive started by the IPKF on the 10th day of October 1987, many hospitals were not functioning, and there were no transport facilities. There was a tense situation prevailing as many innocent civilians had been either killed or wounded. Jaffna General Hospital was still functioning in midst of hardships.
But the barbaric acts carried out by the IPKF inside the Jaffna Hospital on that day killed many. The dead included those at work - in the X ray building, doctors in the resting room, in doctors' offices, in guest houses of the doctors, and also all those injured civilians who had been brought there from all over the peninsula.

Dr.C.K.Ganesaratnam who finished his medical studies at the Jaffna University and working as a Surgeon at Jaffna General hospital, Dr. Parimezhakar, head nurse Mrs. P.Vadivelu, nurse Mrs.Mangaitkarasi, the superviors at Leelavati Private Nursing Home- Mr.Selvaraja, S.Seevaratnam, Ambulance Driver V.Shanmugalingam, and active workers at the Jaffna General Hospital Mr.Peter, Mr.M.Thurairasa were among those killed on the spot by the IPKF.

An infant and few other children also became the victims of the IPKF when they made noise, watching these horrors. Struck by a heart attack an aged civlian died died singing the "sivapuraaNam" Barrels and barrels of bullets were spent on innocent patients who tried to seek help. They did the same to the children and the aged who asked for water.

On the next morning, 22 October 1987, Dr.Sivapathasuntharam, who had unknowingly came into hospital premises attempted to save his injured coworkers, was killed by the army personnel who were on guard. The next day the IPKF collected all the dead bodies and burnt all the bodies at the back of the mortuary.

A total of 68 innocent Tamils were killed during this particular barbaric offensive of the IPKF. This number included three Doctors, three nurses, seventeen coworkers at the Jaffna hospital and others were the patients admitted to the hospital.

The killings of Dr.Sivapathasuntharam and other doctors who continued to serve the Tamil community unlike the other doctors who fled to alien lands after 1983 riots has become a dark spot in the history of Tamil people. "

 

[SajeevJino]

@manlion

Uganda too Not Participating the Commonwealth Meet in Sri Lanka ..Right

 

[manlion]

Kenya is lobbying Uganda to boycott adding on to Lanka's CHOGM woes