Strike across Sri Lanka’s north over police killings

Colombo/ AFP

Sri Lankans went on strike across the island’s north on Tuesday as anger mounted over the police killing of two Tamil university students at a checkpoint. Shops, banks and other offices were closed across the war-ravaged Jaffna peninsula and public transport was halted in protest against the shootings last week.
“The entire province is paralysed by the 12-hour work stoppage which started this morning,” Tamil politician Eswarapatham Saravanapavan, who represents Jaffna district, said.
“Only a few private vehicles and security services are on the road.”
Officials in the northern province’s four other districts said schools were also forced to shut after students stayed away, while many workers also failed to show up at government offices.
Police initially reported the students, aged 23 and 24, died in a motorcycle accident, but later said they were shot and died last Thursday night after they failed to stop at a checkpoint.
Saravanapavan said the strike was the largest in Jaffna since the end of the war in 2009 between the military and rebels fighting for a separate homeland for the ethnic Tamil minority. The shootings have hiked tensions in the north where Tamil residents suffered years of harassment from the ethnic Sinhalese-dominated military before and during the decades-long conflict.