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Buddhist statue appears overnight in the middle Trincomalee town:

The Sinhala auto drivers installed a 12 feet tall Buddhist statue in front of the bus stand in Trincomalee city over Sunday night. The statue has been set up in a majority Tamil area without permission from the Urban Council. The Tamil people’s consortium has called a full-scale civil action to protest the setting up of the statue and calling for its removal.

Buddhist statue, installed in front of the bus stand

The Trincomalee city came to a standstill. Commercial buildings, schools, government and private offices were all closed. Tamil people’s consortium has announced that the protests will continue until the statue has been removed.

Today during the protest, grenades were thrown at the Maraththadi junction at 1.40 and 2.30 p.m. One person was killed and four has been injured and admitted to the hospital by the grenade attack at 2.30 p.m. Today afternoon sounds of grenades continued to be heard from the Trincomalee town areas. The majority community severed the hands of Tamil youth in Uppuveli region. Sinhalese mobs cut of the ear of one Tamil Rehabilitation Organization's officer.

Suspecting that Tamil people may remove the statue, police and military personnel were guarding it.

At the same time a meeting took place at the Trincomalee police station between the religions heads and the Tamil people’s consortium. Representatives of the Tamil people demanded that the statue set up without permission from the Urban Council in a majority Tamil area must be removed. Since the heads of Buddhist religion present did not agree to this, it was decided to take the matter to the courts.

17 May 2005

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