Sri Lanka to recruit 1,000 Tamils to Police

Colombo, 20 January, (Asiantribune.com):

Sri Lanka’s Police Department yesterday commenced interviews to recruit 1,000 Tamil youth to the junior grades of the police service.

The interviews are held to recruit both men and women sub-inspectors and police constables, and police drivers, a statement by President Office said.

All applicants are from the districts in the Northern Province- Jaffna, Killinochchi, Mulaitivu, Mannar and Vavuniya. The selected individuals will be trained at police training schools before being posted to police stations in the Northern Province.

During the recruitment drive, Tamil youth had shown much interest and more than 6,500 people, including 400 women, applied for 500 police constable posts in Jaffna.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government should be given credit as in 2007 August, barely a month after Sri Lanka security forces liberated the East from the LTTE, Sri Lanka Police commenced a mass recruitment drive of Tamils and Muslims into the force with more than 500 applications being received.

Sri Lanka has until recently only a handful police personnel who could converse in Tamil out of Sri Lanka''s 86,000-strong police force. In 2006, it was reported that Tamils represent approximately 1.2 percent of the police force. Even in predominantly Tamil areas, there are very few Tamil police officers while Sinhalese police officers rarely speak Tamil proficiently.


This language obstacles had "increased the level of misunderstanding and distrust" between the police and Tamil communities in Sri Lanka

Fear of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) targeting Tamil police officers was the most plausible explanation for the low proportion of Tamils in Sri Lanka's police force.

January 07, 2011, marked a new chapter in the history of Sri Lanka Police as a passing out parade ceremony was held at the Kalutara Police College, for a batch which consists of entirely Tamil Police Constables including 16 women officers.

These 336 Tamil-speaking Police officers who gained their basic training skills were recruited from the northern and eastern provinces. Police constable 88993 Gunarathnam Gunarojan was awarded as the best recruit.

One of the new constables was quoted in media as saying that the move would help bridging the gap between the Tamil community and the police in the northern areas of the country.

"Since we are from the same Tamil community, I hope people will trust us. We will be able to improve the relationship between the community and the police," he added.

President Rajapaksa at a passing-out ceremony of Special Task Forces (STF) personnel paid gratitude to the sacrifices made by Tamil police personnel to safeguard the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka and specifically referred to IP Bastiampillai who was the first Policeman to be killed by the LTTE.

- Asian Tribune -