சித்திரவதைக்கு ஆளானவர்களின் கூட்டமைப்பின் மாத்தளை மாவட்டக் கூட்டம்

The Matale District meeting revealed evidence of 19 torture sites used from 1987–1991, linked to military and paramilitary forces. Survivors demand justice, citing 154 skeletal remains and 720 disappearances, implicating Gotabaya Rajapaksa's role during his military coordination in the region.

Matale District Meeting of the Collective of Victims of Torture
The Matale District meeting of the Collective of Victims of Torture was held on the 10th of May 2025.
The Research Division of the Collective has identified 19 torture chambers and detention centres operated solely within the Matale District by the military and affiliated paramilitary groups and death squads connected to the then-government during the period from 1987 to 1991.
In 2012, during a construction project at the Matale Hospital, human skeletal remains were discovered unexpectedly. Subsequent excavation at the site revealed 154 skeletal systems.
It was also revealed that Gotabaya Rajapaksha was serving as the military coordinating officer for the Matale District during that period, and according to Sisira Thadikaram, a survivor who escaped from one of the torture chambers, Gotabaya Rajapaksha had visited the torture chamber at the Matale Police Station on several occasions. During that period alone, around 720 individuals were forcibly disappeared in the Matale District.
Members of the Collective of the Victims of Torture, who were detained in these torture camps and later released, possess eyewitness testimonies regarding these events. They assert that if the present government is unwilling to enforce the law in relation to these grave crimes, then the promised political change cannot be trusted any further.