Sri Lankan troops and police detained 900 people in a major house-to-house search in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo Saturday as part of a major hunt for Tamil Tiger rebels, a top police officer told AFP. Large parts of the capital were sealed off for seven hours during the sudden swoop carried out by 2,000 heavily armed soldiers and 2,400 policemen, Colomboâs Deputy Inspector-General Pujith Jayasundara said. âWe are holding the men and women detainees at eight centres in the city and they are being released as their identities are established,â Jayasundara said. âThe screening of people started at dawn. We detained a total of 903 people.âThe pre-dawn operation concentrated in Colomboâs Wellawatte area where minority Tamils are concentrated, said residents who were not allowed to leave their homes while the search was underway. âA curfew has been declared in this area,â a soldier told motorists entering the fashionable Park Road area of Narahenpita, which was sealed off by dozens of armed soldiers. âThis is done in the national interest.â Defence ministry spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe denied that a curfew had been set and said they were only assisting the police. But residents said they were forced to remain indoors and prevented from getting on to the street and doing their New Yearâs Eve shopping. The search operations came amid an upsurge in violence in the islandâs northeast, where at least 83 people have been killed in clashes linked to the islandâs drawn out Tamil separatist conflict.
The island is currently under a state of emergency which gives sweeping powers to police and security forces to arrest and detain suspects for long periods without trial. Analysts say the Tigers have used the truce to regroup and rearm, and are prepared for war. Troops continued to scour roadsides in the north for the fragmentation mines that have been used to kill 39 military personnel in the past month.