Government in a hurry over polls: TULF

he Sri Lankan military on Sunday said the number of LTTE cadres and the soldiers killed in Saturday’s battles in the north had gone up to 52 and eight respectively. Meanwhile, Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) chief V. Anandasangree charged the Mahinda Rajapaksa government with going ahead with elections to the eastern province in a “great hurry”.

In a letter addressed to Mr. Rajapaksa, the TULF leader argued that free and fair elections were not feasible until all “armed groups are disarmed.”

The immediate provocation for the missive is the reported decision to re-deploy sections of the Special Task Force (STF) from the Amparai district.

However, the government has termed reports on the re-deployment in a section of the local media as “misleading” saying only a few units of the STF were being pulled out for deployment in the northern battle front. Mr. Anandasangree said there was no doubt that the East had been liberated but not cleared fully of the LTTE problem.

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