Lankan army denies charges of killing Tamil youth

Colombo, Apr 19 (UNI) Sri Lankan military today denied charges levelled by the Tamil Tiger rebels of killing five Tamil youths in the restive northern Jaffna peninsula yesterday.

The Jaffna police today morning found the bodies of five Tamil youth killed overnight near a military camp in Puttur in the Jaffna peninsula where a mine attack wounded two soldiers on Monday.

Though there has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the killings but pro-Tamil rebel Tamilnet website has accused the government forces for the killings.

''There was an allegation by the LTTE against the government forces, specially the army that they have killed five Tamil civilians in Jaffna yesterday night, which is totally untrue.

They say that there was an army camp close-by. But there are a lot of civilians living around that camp and the army never got involved in these types of attacks,'' Military spokesman, Brig Prasad Samarasinghe told mediapersons here.

He said that the police and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission are investigating into the incident.

''There is also an allegation that the security forces are supporting the illegal armed groups in the government controlled areas. The security forces never support any illegal armed groups in the government-controlled areas or enter into uncleared areas to carry out operations against the LTTE or anybody since the ceasefire agreement was signed in 2002," Brig Samarasinghe said.

Meanwhile, two separate claymore mines explosions in the Northern Vavuniya and Mannar districts injured four people, including a Korean national.

According to police, two naval sailors were also wounded when their water-tanker came under a claymore mine explosion in the Mannar district.

UNI XC SK KP2006