German dictator Adolf Hitler had set up a torture camp to ill-treat the Jews during World War-II. The Hitler’s camp was ruthless and the monstrous dictator even went to the extent of converting his torture camp in Auschwitz into a gas chamber to kill the Jews mega scale mercilessly. Renowned Hollywood Director Steven Spielberg’s Oscar winning film Schindler’s List in black and white had even highlighted the way how the Auschwitz torture camp functioned.
The Schindler’s list based on the real story of torture and other ruthless way of Jews treated at the Auschwitz torture camp by Adolf Hitler. So presently the details coming up about the Battalanda torture camp in Sri Lanka in the late eighties and in the early part of nineties highlight how those who were suspected as Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) militants tortured and ill-treated at the Batalanda torture camp by the special squad responsible for curbing the JVP activities.
In recent days television channels and the newspapers are elaborating extensively on the atrocities committed at the Battalanda torture camp. The revelations made on the Battalanda camp by the inmates who had released from there , now describe the manner they were tortured and harassed for their involvement with the JVP in the late eighties and in the early nineties.
The Batalanda detention centre was an alleged detention center located within the Batalanda Housing Scheme of the State Fertiliser Corporation in the Biyagama electorate. It was used by the Counter Subversive Unit of the Sri Lanka Police when the JVP insurrection took place for the second time between 1987 and 1989. Battalanda torture camp was created particularly to detain the JVP suspects and extract the details about their fellow militants and about their activities.
From 1987 to 1989 the assassinations and abductions of premier political figures had taken place extensively. So the Government in power during that darker period responded in a ruthless manner treating the JVP suspects at the detention camps and Battalanda camp had been the premier camp among all torture camps in the Island. Battalanda being the popular torture camp, there were several other detention centers remained in Boosa and in various parts of the Island not only to suppress the JVP activists, but also to detain and torture the Tamil militants involved in the armed struggle in the North and East.
The fourth floor of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) was the popular detention center where a large number of young Tamil men were detained and questioned ruthlessly over their involvements in the militant activities. From the CID’s fourth floor to Boosa camp the Tamils who were suspected of involving in the militant activities were questioned in a ruthless manner.
However the Battalanda camp being the center of all forms of torture against the JVP activists, the Government of Anurakumara Dissanayake has come forward to investigate the atrocities committed at the Battalanda torture camp. Therefore before begin with the investigation into the Battalanda torture camp, initiatives have been taken to expose on the atrocities committed at Battalanda by making one time inmates at the Battalanda torture camp.
Nerve wrecking evidences have been given by some of the inmates who were detained at the Battalanda camp for their alleged involvement with the JVP. Those who were interviewed in televisions and in newspapers mentioned how the nails were plucked and eyeballs were squeezed by the officials who had interrogated them. Pipes were even inserted through their anus to extract the details on their activities. One of the men who were assigned from the Army to take the photographs of those who were to be killed came out with some horrifying stories about the persons suspected of their involvement with the JVP.
Apart from the investigations carried out in a ruthless manner at the Battalanda torture camp, the dead bodies of those who were killed by the Armed forces were even thrown into rivers beachside and in other places where the people frequented. It was as warning to others the dead bodies of captured JVP activists were displayed in public places. Similarly the bodies of young Tamil men were also killed and put in certain places such as near the Pannai cause way and several other places at the beginning of the Tamil militancy in the North and East.
Since the JVP had suffered immensely in the latter part of eighties and in the early part of nineties, the present Government led by President Anurakumara Dissanayake has come forward to dig out everything with regard to the Battalanda torture camp. The Government has also decided to look into the Battalanda Commission report which was released during President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge’s period. Therefore with the findings from the Battalanda Commission report, several former political bigwigs as well as Police officials involved with the Battalanda torture camp are expected to be investigated followed by the legal action to be taken against them.
