Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 01, 2009
Mystery shrouds presence of British woman in Tiger territory
B. Muralidhar Reddy
MANIK FARM COMPLEX (Vavuniya): A British woman citizen, Damilvany Gnanakumar, – known as Vani – being questioned by the Sri Lankan authorities after she fled along with the last batch of civilians from the LTTE’s clutches has raised two vital questions. How did she land in the island nation and how did she stay on in the Tiger-controlled territory for nearly 15 months?
Ms. Vani, presumably in her 20s, was among the last batch of 80,000 civilians to flee from the Tiger territory and is said to have told the Sri Lankan authorities that she was ‘working’ at a make-shift hospital there.
The military and Foreign Office said that investigations were on to find out details of her arrival sometime in February 2008 and who facilitated her travel to the LTTE area. “Unless she had contacts in Wanni, there is no way she could travel into the Tiger-held territory. We are looking into all aspects of the curious case,” a senior official in the government told The Hindu.
The Guardian, which carried a front page report on the presence of Ms. Vani in Sri Lanka, does not throw light on how she ended up in the LTTE territory at a juncture when the military and the Tigers were engaged in a full-fledged war.
The paper said, Ms. Vani, “who was working at a hospital helping victims of Sri Lanka’s civil war has been interned in one of the island’s detention camps, prompting her family to plead for urgent diplomatic help to secure her immediate release.”
Quoting her relatives the paper said that she was detained a fortnight ago as the Army moved in to finish off the remnants of the “Tamil Tiger rebels after a military onslaught that left thousands dead and sent many more fleeing for their lives.”
With a background in biomedical science, Ms. Vani had called the family home in Chingford, Essex, on May 19. On May 18 the military had declared that it had finished off the remaining cadres and leaders of the LTTE holed up in a 500 sq. km. land along the Mullaithivu coast. The following day the military said its troops had recovered the body of LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabakaran near a lagoon.
“I’m in this camp, you have to get me out of here,’ but then the phone went dead,” The Guardian quoted her sister, Subha Mohanathas, 29 as saying on May 29. Her sister has been further quoted as saying that her mother, Lathaa, 45, was desperately worried, but she believed that her sister would pull through.
A senior official in the government asked, “If Ms. Vani is interned in one of the island’s detention centres, how could she establish contact with her family?”
The paper quoted her sister saying, “I just want my sister back with me as soon as possible. My mum is crying and we need her back. We didn’t have anything to do with the war.”
The paper further said that diplomatic efforts to secure her release have so far been unsuccessful and on Saturday night her family appealed to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to allow her to return to the UK.
Government officials said the British mission in Colombo had never brought it to the notice of the Foreign Office that one of its citizens has gone missing.
As per the British paper’s report, Gnanakumar’s family arrived in the U.K. as refugees from Jaffna in November 1994.
“She married in 2003, but the relationship was troubled and in February 2008 she returned to Sri Lanka without telling anyone she was leaving.
“The family said that Gnanakumar had been staying in Mullivaykkal — the scene of some of the heaviest fighting — and had called in January to say that she had been caught up in the conflict and was unable to leave. On May 12 they saw her on a Tamil television programme working in a hospital.”
Appeal for helpThe paper said that her father, Kandasamy Kumaran, 51, who has written to his MP, Iain Duncan Smith, appealing for help, said she had come into contact with some doctors and had said she was willing to help because of her background in biomedical science. She had also had training and work experience at a British hospital.
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