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Another incident which influenced the local mind was the landmine attack by the L.T.T.E. on an army patrol on 25 March 1987. Subsequently the severed foot of a Sri Lankan soldier with a boot on it was exhibited successively at the Maviddapuram temple and Tellipallai junction. For its part the Sri Lankan army shelled these two places on successive nights. On the first night a temple priest lost his leg. At Tellipallai junction, Mr. Venugopal was killed. On the 31 March, the L.T.T.E.'s Jaffna leader Mr. Kittu lost a leg in a grenade attack. Many of the Hindu folk at Maviddapuram, steeped in a belief in karma, formed their own conclusions. Nevertheless, the exhibition of gore had attracted sizeable crowds. This followed the exhibition of the dead bodies of nine Sri Lankan soldiers at Kandasamy Kovil four months before. There was taking place a transformation of sensibilities. Many Hindus were disgusted, but silent.

During the night that followed there took place some events that every son of Jaffna should be deeply ashamed of. Eight Sinhalese soldiers were being held captive by the L.T.T.E., from pre-Accord battles. No one doubted that their release was imminent. The relatives of some of these soldiers had appealed to the L.T.T.E.. The father of one of them, a peasant from Galle, had appealed to a prominent Roman Catholic clergyman with connections in Jaffna, after several futile efforts at appealing to the Minister for National Security. On the 6th morning, the blind-folded corpses of these eight soldiers were found dumped in the city's main bus-stand with bullet wounds.

At the time, Mr. Jayamanne, the General Manager (G.M.) and Mr. Gajanayake, the Deputy G.M. of Lanka Cement Ltd. (or L.C.L.) were in Jaffna for the recommissioning of L.C.L.'s plant at K.K.S.. The plant had been closed on 22 April when an L.T.T.E. attack on K.K.S. harbour had resulted in the deaths of 18 Sri Lankan troops and the reprisal killing of five L.C.L. employees by the Sri Lankan Army. Seventy other employees then working at the harbour were saved by the timely action of a ship captain, a Sinhalese, who, fearing reprisals by Sri Lankan troops, promptly took them aboard his ship and put out to sea. The two cement plants at K.K.S. suffered considerable damage during the shelling of the subsequent months. In an unprecedented move which earned him the gratitude of the employees, Mr. Jayamanne took the lead in ensuring that even the casual employees of the two cement plants were paid during the long period of closure. Even those who did not agree with his methods of management, respected him as an able and enthusiastic engineer. On the previous day, Mr. Jayamanne had seen off some C.E.B. (Ceylon Electricity Board) engineers whom he had persuaded to come to Jaffna in order to commission a new transformer for L.C.L.. Mr. Jayamanne was amongst those Sinhalese who believed that Jaffna had a great future following the Indo-Lanka Accord. He was hopeful of restarting the L.C.L. plant the following day.

On the 5th night, Jayamanne and Gajanayake were having a friendly after-dinner chat with several colleagues, including engineers Sothilingam, Velayutham and Arivalagan at the L.C.L. guest house. Around mid-night several armed man burst into the guest house and wanted to take Jayamanne and Gajanayake away. Their colleagues protested. Velayutham who protested strenuously was badly assaulted. Jayamanne and Gajanayake were finally taken away and their dead bodes were found opposite the Cement Corporation gates the following morning.

There was a great deal of anger and sorrow at the two cement works at K.K.S.. They badly wanted to issue a protest leaflet condemning the killings of Mr. Jayamanne and Mr. Gajanayake and to send condolence messages to their families. But this desire was outweighed by fear. There were informers about and no one wished to be identified as being amongst the leaders of such a move. One leaflet purportedly issued by the cement workers expressed sorrow at the deaths of the twelve L.T.T.E. men. No mention was made of the murdered Sinhalese.

What follows is the account of the killing of a Sinhalese police officer at Valvetithurai (V.V.T.) on the 5th night as related by a professional resident there. Following the reopening of the Valvetithurai Police Station after the Accord, certain Sinhalese police officers used to pay evening visits to the local bar to drink and to fraternise. One such police officer was present at the bar on the 5th night. At about 8 p.m., Soosai, the Vadamaratchi leader of the L.T.T.E. and another person entered the bar and started assaulting the police officer mercilessly. He was then dragged out and was beaten to death with a wooden pole. The following day L.T.T.E. sources attributed this and the other killings of Sinhalese to the 'people,' who they said had become angry over the suicides of the twelve L.T.T.E. men. But the people of V.V.T. were deeply hurt that they were being held responsible for such an inhuman act.

Indeed, the Jaffna dailies attributed these killings to unknown persons. These were followed by a spate of killings of Sinhalese civilians in the Eastern Province. Thirty five long term Sinhalese residents of Batticaloa were gunned down. A land mine explosion killed Batticaloa's S.T.F. chief Nimal Silva. Mr. Antonymuthu (Government Agent, Batticaloa) who was travelling in the same vehicle was also killed. The B.B.C. reported that in the days that followed, a total of about 200 Sinhalese civilians were killed.

These events must be viewed in the context that shortly after the Accord, the L.T.T.E.'s deputy leader Mr. Sri Mahattaya told the Weekend, a national newspaper, that the Sinhalese civilians were welcome to visit Jaffna and that no harm would befall them. Thus many Tamils in Jaffna regarded these killings as a breach of hospitality. It must also be kept in mind that many Sinhalese who visited Jaffna after the Accord did so with a feeling that the Tamils were fellow countrymen who had been wronged and that it was time for them to understand the Tamils and to build bridges. Especially many women felt that it was very wrong to have killed those soldiers who had been fed with their own hands for several months. In another development four members of the Rupavahini (the state television station) crew were abducted in Jaffna and were presumed killed. A lecturer in English and his bride, both Tamils, who were spending their honeymoon at Subash Hotel were rudely awakened by armed men who were going room by room looking for Sinhalese.

In Karainagar, a crowd was watching the England Versus India test cricket match on a television screen supplied by a generator, because the electricity had been cut. The following day, 5 November, an Indian helicopter shelled the area killing eleven persons. This raid seems to have been carried out on the basis of the flimsy, uncorroborated speculation that passed for intelligence. The shelling of Chavakachcheri town was similar. The town was shelled from an Indian helicopter at mid-day on 27 October, 1987. The market area where the shells fell was full of ordinary people and refugees from further north. According to Mr. S.G. Deva, an eye-witness, there was nothing in the area at that time to distinguish it as an L.T.T.E. target. Between twenty and forty persons were killed. A dead mother was hugging her dead child and a piece of shrapnel had entered through her body and pierced the child she was carrying. According to a traveller who passed through Chavakachcheri market an hour before the aerial shelling, he had seen a Datsun pick-up mounted with a 50 calibre machine gun and armed L.T.T.E. men moving slowly through the market. He had remarked to some friends that there would be trouble as an Indian observation helicopter had been around. This however does not justify the action taken an hour later. Refugees who were waiting to go south at Sangupitty jetty were fire-bombed from a helicopter on 25 October. An eye-witness account appeared in the Sunday Times of 1 November. A similar tragedy overtook several people attempting to get across to the Islands from the Araly jetty on 22 October. Seventeen were reported killed when boats carrying civilians were fired upon from the air.

It was clearly unacceptable that the I.P.K.F. should fire shells into civilian populated areas. When questioned, Indian officers would say that if they are ordered to take a town they must first shell it, adding that we civilians are ignorant of military methods. We feel here that such a stand-point is unacceptable in terms of what was expected of a peace keeping force and in terms of India's oft repeated sentiments on the matter. The shelling seldom affected or intimidated the L.T.T.E.. The victims were almost always civilians.

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