Mannar, Murungan Road Massacre – 04.12.1984
On the morning of 04.12.1984, a massive explosion was heard at around 11 am in the eleventh block area. After that, all the soldiers went to the Toladi camp and returned to Uilangula area in the afternoon. At that time, a helicopter was also circling in the sky. The soldiers who came there and shot dead the people who were sitting on the street stopped the bus coming from Vavunia while it was going towards the 11th block and the Sinhalese conductor did not allow it. So they shot him and shot dead the forty people in the bus. Only one elderly person survived in an unconscious state. After that, the soldiers went back to Murungan Taparkanthor after shooting everyone in sight.
In particular, they shot and killed the driver, conductor, and people standing in a nearby house. The carnage continued till that evening. Those who died were mostly those who fled for safety and returned home to collect supplies. Then the next day, after the soldiers went to the camps, all the dead bodies were taken away with the help of the father. The corpses of more than a hundred people who came in the bus and worked in the fields were taken away. More than two hundred dead bodies of civilians almost from Murungan to Tolladi Camp; were found. On the fourth day of March 1984, Mannar district was devastated by the killing spree of the Sri Lanka Army. On the second day (06.12.1984) after the incident, King Ayar received the permission of the Sri Lanka Army. The President along with the people took ninety bodies (some burnt) to the Mannar Hospital. The death toll in this incident is more than two hundred.
Gnanaprakasam Anthonypillai from Vattakandal said:
“In this, an elderly man who was unable to walk said: He stopped the bus and got everyone off, except for a few people like him, who stood in a row and shot him with an automatic gun.
He said the soldiers shot together. In this incident, they shot all those who were doing field work without any discrimination. Their dead bodies, all unclothed and unidentifiable, were deposited in the Mannar Hospital three days later. During the incident shops on the street and some public houses were all smashed and burnt.”
Kathiran Soundararajan of Vattakandal Balaperumalkat said about the incident:
“Following the 1984 landmine attack on the eleventh block, the Sri Lankan army who arrived there killed more than two hundred people by chopping them up and burning them in haystacks. Many of our relatives have died in this incident. One of my brothers was tortured to drink blood. They shot and killed one of my brothers named Nadarasa. In 1984, they tortured and killed my other brother, Kandasamy, in the third pitti.”
By: Tamil Genocide 1956 – 2001 Book.