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Buried NIC cache dates from time of JVP mayhem
Police said the NICs belong to people in their late '60s and '70s. Pix by Rahul Samantha Hettiarachchi
The bundle of National Identity Cards (NIC) found buried in an irrigation reserve in the Ambalantota area were probably buried there during the 1980s JVP insurgency, local officials said.
The cards, unearthed during excavation, belonged to people who lived in that area, one official said.
The Grama Sevaka of Walawethetha East, K.M. Nandasa, said the identity cards would have been collected by the JVP in 1988-89, at the height of the insurgency. He said at the time the JVP went on a wild spree, knocking at the doors of homes, threatening families and collecting identity cards from the youth of the area.
Many of the identity cards belong to people who are now old and some have even died, he said.
“Most of them have obtained new identity cards, claiming to have mislaid the others. They would not openly say that the cards were forcefully taken from them,” he said.
“Even my wife’s and mother-in-law’s identity cards were taken away at that time,” he said.
Uhapathagoda Grama Sevaka Nuwan Chandradasa also said the NICs belonged to people who were in their 20s at that time. The NICs, he said, although packed in a polythene bag, had become faint and illegible with age.
Kuda Bolana, Grama Sevaka T.S. Samsudeen said that many of the cards might belong to people in his division. He said that there were around 500 Muslim families in the two grama sevaka divisions he oversees.
It is difficult to trace these people as most of them have obtained new identity cards and will not come forward to claim the old cards, he said. Several were in their late sixties and seventies and some had died.
Police confirmed the NICs belong to people in their late 60s and 70s. It is learnt that the NICs have been handed over to the Hambantota Magistrates Courts while investigations continue.
The Department of Registration of Persons (DRP) says police have not consulted it over the discovery. DRP Chairman, R.M.S. Sarathkumara, pointed out that he could have helped with identification by checking the cards against documents.
If the court decides to destroy the NICs it is important that a DRP officer be present during the process, he said.
Sorting out the IDs