SRI LANKA: Attacks On Bible School Continue
27 March 08
Provincial Council member assaults security guard at college after leading protest.
A Provincial Council member brandishing a gun assaulted a security guard at a Bible college in Lunuwila, Puttlam district two weeks after an attack on 10 of the institution’s students seriously injured two of them.
A source identified in published reports as Winton Appuhamy appeared at the college gate at midnight on March 15, threatened an unarmed security guard and assaulted him. A hearing that was scheduled earlier that day regarding the March 2 attack by masked men on students of the Believers’ Church Bible College was postponed after Appuhamy led a protest with villagers and some Buddhist monks accusing the school of harboring Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) terrorists.
After beating the security guard that night, the public official left, threatening to return and rape female students resident at the college. When arrested by the police, he claimed that he had acted out of patriotic concern.
In the March 2 attack, a group of masked men had beaten the Bible college students as they walked from the Lunuwila railway station to the school, injuring nine of them. A few minutes before the attack, Appuhamy had met the students and asked where they were heading. They replied that they were on their way to the Bible college. Shortly after they were assaulted, this same Provincial Council member came to the gate of the Bible college, shouting and threatening that he would not allow it to continue for more than a week. The Bible school has operated in Lunuwila since 2002.
In the attack on the students, “There were about 10 men on motorbikes who assaulted them, kicking and beating them with fists and rods,” said Rev. Lal Vanderwall, Diocesan Overseer of the Believers’ Church.
More attackers arrived in a van and dragged one of the students into the vehicle, where a person wearing heavy boots kicked and beat him.
A student escaped and ran to the Bible college to get help. One of the assailants followed him on a motorbike and assaulted the security guard, though the guard was able to close the gate to prevent the attacker from entering the premises.
“The injured students were rushed to the Lunuwila hospital for treatment,” said Rev. Vanderwall. “Nine were treated for injuries; two were badly injured. One student required extensive treatment at the Marawila Hospital as he suffered severe blows to his stomach.”
Two of the attackers were identified in a complaint to the Koswatte Police the same day, March 2. Police made initial inquiries and referred the matter to the local Mediation Board.
The day before the hearing, leaflets appeared in the village urging villagers to join a protest campaign and pressuring authorities to close the Bible college. The leaflets contained false, inflammatory allegations claiming that the Bible college was a bunker harboring LTTE terrorists.
The day of the hearing, Provincial Council Member Appuhamy led a protest against the Bible college, together with villagers and a few Buddhist monks. The protesters carried placards calling the school an LTTE terrorist center. Police provided protection to the Bible college and the students who were trapped within school walls.
The protesters hung placards on the fence of the college and dispersed. Observers said the presence of media at the protest suggested the demonstration was well planned and carried out with the intent of defaming the school.
Intensified fighting between government troops and the LTTE, bombings of civilian targets, abductions, killings and other atrocities have deepened the mistrust between the country’s majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil ethnic communities.
The divide is exacerbated daily by politicians and media using the conflict for their own ambitions, as well as by ordinary citizens taking the law into their own hands in acts of misguided patriotism. Anti-Christian elements also strategically exploit the conflict to provoke and justify violence against Christians.
Source: Compass
- Pray for this situation in Sri Lanka
- Pray that God will heal the wounds of those injured and will give strength to those who have been persecuted.
- Pray that this situation will not discourage Christians from God.
`