Colombo, Mar 22 (PTI) Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Friday released 234 acres of land, previously held by the Jaffna Security Forces Headquarters, to farmers in the area, according to an official statement.
Jaffna is a Tamil-dominated capital city of the Northern Province of Sri Lanka.
“President Ranil Wickremesinghe released 234 acres of land which were previously held by the Jaffna Security Forces Headquarters, to farmers for cultivation purposes in 5 Grama Niladhari Divisions in Jaffna,” the statement issued by the President’s Media Division (PMD) said in a post on X.
These plots of land were released to farmers across five Grama Niladhari Divisions in Jaffna for cultivation purposes.
Wickremesinghe symbolically presented the deeds benefiting 408 individuals at a ceremony held in Jaffna’s Oddakapulam under the Urumaya national programme, aimed at distributing two million freehold deeds to the deserving public.
Officials said some 68 acres had also been released on March 10.
These lands had been cultivated by the military since public access to them had been shut due to the military operations against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) till 2009.
During and after the conflict with LTTE, some 3,500 acres of privately owned lands were taken over by the military to create the high-security zone around the Palaly military base of Jaffna which is also the site for the current Jaffna International Airport.
Since 2015 some of these lands have been released to their private owners in response to pleas after the military defeated the LTTE in 2009.
Jaffna holds great significance as it was the region where the LTTE had run a military campaign for a separate Tamil homeland for nearly 30 years before its collapse in 2009 after the Sri Lankan Army killed its supreme leader V Prabhakaran.
The region has lacked economic development and the Sri Lankan leaders have said they are committed to the development of the Tamil-dominated Northern and Eastern provinces of the island nation. PTI CORR PY RUP AKJ RUP RUP
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