Claim your jewellery -Army tells Northern civilians

15 October 2014 11:31 am Views - 3870

The Security Forces who had already launched the process of returning identified gold jewellery, recovered earlier from the LTTE, to their rightful owners, today appealed remaining civilians who have still failed to claim their valuables after the war to reach Civil Coordinating Offices in the north, the military said.

Accordingly, the military requested the northern civilians to come to the Civil Coordinating Offices in Wanni, Kilinochchi, Mullaittivu, Mannar and Jaffna and process their ownership claims, proving their bona fides for verification.

Following Presidential directives, Security Forces as the war for separation, was coming to a climax, took charge of a considerable stock of gold jewellery which is of sentimental and decorative value to the Tamil community after they were recovered from the so called ‘Tamil Eelam Banks’ and ‘Eelam Pawning Centres’ that were in operation in some areas under LTTE diktats during humanitarian operations, the army said.

“All those recoveries of jewelleries were duly documented, properly catalogued and detained for safe-keeping under the custody of the Security Forces on the directions of the President,” the Army headquarters said in a statement.

In the aftermath of the humanitarian operations, Security Forceshave so far managed to identify 2377 legitimate claimants to such jewelleries, although some of which had already been pawned by those owners and money value obtained from the terrorists as evidenced in some receipts, produced to the Security Forces by the victims.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Sunday (12) at Kilinochchi symbolically inaugurated the return of gold jewelleries to 25 owners of the Northern Province

It also said that Security Forces in the event legitimate claimants could not be traced, expect to hand over those remaining jewelleries to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in accordance with State regulations and provisions.