Although political parties, civil activists and the international community call for an end to gun culture, five students of Vavuniya College of Agriculture were cruelly massacred Sri Lankan Army on Saturday(November 18th).

At an inquest held into the death of these students, a girl told M.Elanchelian Vavuniya Magistrate that the students were massacred even after they revealed their identity that they were students. The security situation is so worse that the students who gave evidence before the Magistrate sought security as they feared retaliation.

Now, the question before the people is what action the government proposes to take to trace the culprits as these murders took place in the campus of the government college in a government controlled area.

It is noticeable that the violence that had subsided for four years following the signing of the Ceasefire Agreement between the government and the LTTE has once again worsened.

Large scale arrests of Tamil people, abductions, disappearances and murders have become daily occurrences in the North-East. Vavuniya massacre of five college students is a continuation of such violence.

Although the government has assured to conduct inquiries into extra judicial killings with the support of the international community, nothing has been done.

It is appropriate to wind up with the words of R.Sampanthan ,TNA Parliamentary group Leader and a senior Tamil leader, in an interview with a TV programme. A lady asked him over the phone whether violence of this nature would be stopped. Sampanthan responded in the following words in frustration

“Only God can answer”

An English translation of the Editorial in Thinakkural, a Tamil daily, based in Colombo

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