Army unlocks LTTE lock-up at Toppigala

The LTTE had maintained a jail to hold prisoners in the Toppigala jungles which they abandoned when government forces moved in. The main jail at Toppigala is situated on the special road built by the Tigers from Karadiyanaru to Toppigala rock which comprised four cells each with a squatting toilet and a tap.

Each cell could have held as much as ten inmates. Parallel to the cell wing was another long building with a wall in the middle. On either side of this wall in facing double rows were 24 iron chains fixed to the ground with concrete to each of which prisoners could have been chained to the ground. Each chain was no more than a foot long.

This camp also contained a short firing range to train Tiger pistol cadres. According to Sgt Maj. J. P. Naotunna of the sixth Gemunu regiment who accompanied us to the camp, it had also contained a court house, but we could not make out a court house from the five or six buildings that were in this mini camp, as soldiers had freely cannibalized whatever furniture and fittings that had been in the complex for their own use in small jungle camps.