posted March 20, 2001 03:10 PM            

[TamilNet, March 20, 2001 18:12 GMT]

A young mother arrested by the Counter Subversive Unit (CSU) of the Mannar Police Monday night was stripped naked, assaulted and tortured by five men in her cell, sources said. The woman’s five-year-old child is also detained with her at the CSU. The young woman, Sivamani Weerakon, was arrested from the Aasika Lodge in Uppukkulam, a suburb of the Mannar town. Her husband was away in Vavuniya at the time of her arrest, the sources said. Policemen from the CSU had arrested her and her child around 11 a.m. Monday night. They had also arrested Wijayakala Nanthan, another young woman who was at the lodge. Both are being held at the CSU in Mannar town.

Sivamani had come from the Vanni with her child to find her husband who was living in Vavuniya with a mistress. When she met her husband he had persuaded her to go with him to Mannar where they had booked into the Aasika Lodge in Uppukkulam on 13 March. Sivamani’s husband had gone back to Vavuniya two days ago.

Wijayakala’s husband too is away in Vavuniya, the sources said.

Young women who come to Mannar town from the Vanni are frequently subjected to harassment and, when arrested, to torture by the CSU, a human rights activist in Mannar said.