A court in Sri Lanka has strongly condemned the police for their inaction and inordinate delay in the investigations into the largest mass grave in the country.
Mannar Magistrate A S Hibathulla ordered the Police to inform the court about the date the investigations will recommence.
Police investigations into the mass graves at the Sathosa complex in Mannar are stalled for over three and a half years.
Mannar court ordered on 22nd February this year to start excavation works again at the place where more than 300 skeletons of men and women including 28 children were found in the mass grave. The order was issued on a petition from the relatives of enforced disappeared persons.
Expansion work of the Sathosa building in Mannar was suspended for three months following the finding of the skeletons.
However, the excavation work did not start till the relatives of those abducted and disappeared and handed over to the army demanded it.
Judicial Medical Officer Chaminda Rajapaksa submitted to the court the cost of restarting the investigation on 18 May this year, which he told the court on Monday (17).
If difficulties arise with the funds, the same can be arranged through the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) the counsel for the Office told the court. The attorney for the petitioners -those affected- V.S.Nirajan expressed his support for the excavation of the mass grave to be restarted.
Earlier, forensic expert Chaminda Rajapaksa had told media people excavation work at the Mannar Sathosa mass grave was being taken forward considering it as a scene of crime. He told this to the court on the 190th day of the hearing.
Miami headquartered organisation Beta Analytics after analysing six excavated bones suggested the skeletons may belong to the period 1404-1635 AD.
Rejecting the findings senior professor of archaeology at Kelaniya University Raj Somadeva said the period of the skeletons in the mass grave could be credibly ascertained only by analysing hundreds of objects found along with the skeletons and starting new investigations in July 2019.
Deep-cut wounds along with bodies tied together have been found in this mass grave so far.
