Over 300 passengers of the Trincomalee-Colombo night mail had a narrow escape as suspected LTTE cadres attacked it with a claymore bomb, the military claimed on Wednesday.The Defence Ministry said the engine and the rail track were heavily damaged due to the explosion which occurred at 8.30 pm on Tuesday. “Tiger terrorists had apparently targeted the civilians travelling in the train. It is ironical that the LTTE which claim to be the sole representative of the Tamil people have targeted the civilian passengers who were mainly Tamils whom they claim to liberate. “This cowardly attack is yet another instance of LTTE’s brutal terrorism which target unharmed innocent civilians irrespective of race and religion,” it said.
Highway closure
In another development, the LTTE complained that the closure of A 9 highway by the military since August last year had made life very difficult for the civilians of the Jaffna peninsula.
The LTTE said the highway served as a lifeline to the people of Jaffna as well as Vanni. “Seriously ill medical cases from Vanni were taken in ambulances to the Jaffna hospital. Every day ambulances plied seven to eight times a day, carrying around six patients in each trip. This is necessitated by the poor medical resources in Vanni. “Even the Jaffna hospital resources are very poor in comparison to what is available in the south of island. Many very seriously ill patients were taken to Colombo for treatment through the A9 route.”
The LTTE said the Jaffna civilians had no land route even to seek emergency medical treatment and the only option available to them is the “passenger” ship operated by the Navy. “It is a well known truth that each time this “civilian passenger” ship plies to and from Jaffna and Trincomalee, invariably the military personnel travelling in the ship is many times more than the number of civilians in the ship,” the Tigers complained.
