Mulliyavalai village is situated on the Mullaithivu-Vavuniya road in the Mullaithivu district. It is an ancient village with fertile land and has retained many of the folk culture of time past.
16.01.1985 was a festive day, the day after Thaipongal. Thaipongal is thanks giving festival for the sun and on the following day the farm animals are honoured for their role in the farmer’s life. At 4.00 am on that morning the Sri Lankan military rounded up this village.
The military arrested 17 people. One of them was a pregnant woman and another was a young mother of three children. Before they left, the military burnt down many homes. About 30 minutes later, people heard several gunshots. News started to spread that all the 17 people who were arrested have been shot dead. The villagers kept this news from the relatives of the 17 arrested.
A while later military vehicles started moving towards the Mullaithivu town. The relatives stared into the military vehicles looking for their loves ones. When their relatives did not return even the next day, the families, accompanied by a local Justice of Peace, Thiagaraja, went to the military camp in Mullaithivu.
There the families saw the bodies of their loved ones thrown on the ground. The bodies had no clothes on them. The hand, legs and heads were chopped off. There were many torture marks on the body. The body of one woman had many cigarette burns. When the families asked to take the bodies of their loved ones, the military demanded that the families sign a statement that those killed were terrorists. When the families refused to do this the military refused to hand over the bodies.
Thavaratnam Thilakavathy of Mulliyavalai says,
“On 16.01.1985, the Sri Lankan military arrested 17 people including my husband and my son and took them towards the forest nearby. The military burnt many homes and stole many properties.”
Pushparanee says,
“The Sri Lankan military entered our home and arrested my brother and my mother and killed them both. The army said that they killed the people who were Tigers. One woman, Kumarasamy Vijayakumari who was 7 months pregnant was also killed. Many of us here were affected by this. Since this happened the day after Thaipongal festival, we do not celebrate Thaipongal any more”.
Available names of victims (name, occupation, age)
1. Nagaratnam Sriskantharasa, -, 35
2. Thambaiya Vivekanantham, Student, 17
3. Sinnappan Annalaxmi, Home maker, 35
4. Suppan Sinnan, Self Employed, 40
5. Pilippaiya Yokarasa, Fisherman, 17
6. Sellaththurai Kumarasami, Farmer, 35
7. Sellaththurai Navaratnam, Farmer, 38
8. Kumarasami Vijayakumari, Home maker, 27
9. Markkandu Thadsanamoorththi, Fisherman, 19
10. Thambaiya Balasubramaniyam, Farmer, 30
11. Navaratnam Thayaparan, Student, -, 15