Sri Lankan journalist critical after murderous attack

Photo courtesy: Tamilnet

By R.K. Radhakrishnan | The Hindu
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A senior journalist of a Tamil newspaper based in Jaffna, who was attacked on Friday evening, continues to be in a critical condition.

Gnanasundaram Kuhanathan (59), the news editor of Uthayan, was beaten up by unidentified men with iron bars and left for dead near his home. This was the second such attack on a Uthayan journalist in the past two months. A reporter from the paper S. Kavitharan was attacked on May 28. Uthayan supports the TNA, which openly supported the LTTE.

“There have been four murders of journalists in Sri Lanka since 2008 in which a link with the victim's work was clearly established, and a well-known cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda has been missing since January 2010,” said Reporters Without Borders, in a statement.

The Tamil United Liberation Front strongly condemned the attack. “This is not the first time that Mr. Kuganathan had faced this ordeal. On an earlier occasion too, an armed group broke into his office and demanded to know his whereabouts,” said V. Anandasangaree, president, TULF. It is very unfortunate that harassment of journalists, particularly in Jaffna, is on the increase and goes on unabated… The Police should go all out to detect the culprits who seem to be of the same gang repeatedly getting engaged in this type of activities, purely for money and not out of any personal animosity on the journalists,” he added.

According to the Sri Lankan News Agency Lankapuvath, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has order the country's top police official, IG N.K. Ilangakoon to investigate the incident.

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