Armed Lankan soldiers search Express staffer’s home

One of the officers began reading a half-finished report on the switched-on computer and seeing the word “Jaffna”, asked what it was about and then read the whole report through.

The soldiers, among whom were two women, found some press releases from the LTTE and asked whether this correspondent was in touch with the Tigers. On being told that it was routine for all journalists to receive such press releases by fax, they took fax copies of the latest statement.

They were also interested in a photograph of this correspondent taken outside an LTTE court in Tiger-controlled territory in eastern Sri Lanka. Looking at it, the Colonel said, “So you went to Tamil Eelam?”

During the raid, a big team of commandos surrounded the area, patrolling boundary walls and roofs. They left after a 25-minute search of the premises, and though the Colonel maintained it was a purely random exercise, the team made only a pretense of searching other houses in the lane.

Recently, the hotel room of another Indian journalist, Sudha Ramachandran of the Deccan Herald, who was here on an assignment from Bangalore, was searched by the police who told her that she was under suspicion as she was Tamil.