Manthuvil is a village near the Chavakachcheri town in the Jaffna district. Eight young men were spending the night on 6 May 2006 at the Manthuvil Kolathamman temple after a day’s work in preparations for the “Kumbapishekam”. They had already taken permission from the Sri Lanka Army to spend the night at the temple.
While they were at the temple, the Sri Lankan military that drove past the temple at 7.00pm stopped at the temple and held an investigation and left. Another military unit came around at 11.00pm and conducted another investigation. Neighbours heard another jeep arriving at the temple at 12.00 midnight. Following this gun shots and wails were also heard by the neighbours.
People were too frightened to come out in the middle of the night. On day break people came out and started to look for the young men. People noticed blood marks that had been covered with sand.
Later some people said that the bodies of these men were to be found in the nearby forest. Sri Lankan military stopped the people from going to that area. A while later SLMM was allowed into the area to look for the bodies but the SLMM did not find the bodies. The families of the eight young men believe that Sri Lankan military personnel killed them and disposed the bodies.
Names of victims (name, age)
1. Kanthasami Parimelalahan, 29
2. Kularadnam Thayarooban, 22
3. Markandu Puspakanthan , 26
4. Ponnambalam Partheeban, 22
5. Rasanayaham Sivananthamoorthy, 35
6. Rasaradnam Rajakumar, 24
7. Sevaradnam Sivanantham, 22
8. Vyhunthavasan Vyhunthakumar, 22
