A special operation was launched by the Jaffna Police yesterday to arrest suspects involved with the Aava gang and in respect of other gang activities, the Jaffna Senior DIG Roshan Fernando told the Daily News.
He said the special search operation has been launched in the Kopai, Chunnakam and Manipai areas especially targeting the Inuvil and Kokkuvil areas where most of the gang violence has been reported.
During the cordon and search operation yesterday the police officers had searched around 21 homes, while three suspects who had been involved with the Aava gang had been arrested.
The special operation took place with the participation of around 300 police officers including 200 from the Jaffna range, 50 from Mullaithivu, 50 from Killinochchi and the rest being intelligence officers, the Senior DIG said.
The police had also launched a vehicle search operation from 6.00 am to 11.00 am yesterday especially targeting motorcycles resulting in 81 traffic cases being filed.
Senior DIG Fernando noted that these mass scale police operations would be continued in order to curb gang violence in the North.
During a press briefing held by Law and Order Minister Ranjith Maddumabandara last week, the Jaffna Senior DIG vowed to step up operations to curb gang violence in the North. However, he said these operations were targetted at apprehending those who commit violence and would not disrupt the lives of the ordinary people.
“The majority of the people living in the North are peaceful and peace loving.
Hence, we do not want these operations to hinder their peaceful living and we conduct these operations only after intense intelligence operations. Our intelligence units first conduct investigations and once we have identified areas where these Aava and other gang members are residing, only then do we conduct these cordon and search operations,”he said.
The Jaffna Senior DIG noted however, that sometimes even though the gang members are located, when the Police launch search operations the parents of these gang members claim that they don’t live there anymore. But Senior DIG Roshan Fernando vowed to continue these special operations in order to eradicate these gang activities from the North.
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