‘A peasant experience’

by A. J. A. Abeynayake
The daughter of George Pancharatnam, better known as George Master, the LTTE’s one-time media spokesman, visited her father at the CID last week.
Domiciled in Australia, Gayathri Jude arrived in Sri Lanka last week with her husband and two children to see her father who is being held by the CID following his surrender to the army during the height of the military thrust against the LTTE.
She works as a lecturer at a leading Australian University while her husband is an engineer.
Speaking to The Sunday Island after meeting with her father, Gayathri said she was cautioned against visiting Sri Lanka by her friends and relatives who predicted the worst in a “hostile land”.
“When I announced plans to visit Sri Lanka, they warned me that the police will not only kill me, but my husband and two children as well”, she recalled. “If not, we will be tortured, they warned”.
“So, I returned to Sri Lanka with a great degree of fear”, she noted. “On arrival, I called the CID and asked whether I could visit my father, preferably on Saturday”.
“The CID officers were very cordial and cooperative. They asked me not to wait till Saturday but to call over on Friday itself”, Gayathri said. “So, I went there with my family and had a chat with my father”.
She said the OIC, CID, CI Chandana de Silva and his officers were so accommodative that he asked me to visit my father again the following day (Saturday) also. “I never expected such a warm reception from the police in Sri Lanka”.
She said that she had a long, leisurely chat with her father on both days and the CID made her experience a pleasant one. “My father said that he is being treated well by the police”.
Gayathri said that she last visited Sri Lanka in 2005 to attend her mother’s funeral. “I now realize the extent of the false propaganda spread by the LTTE to mislead the international community and tarnish Sri Lanka’s image”.
“To say that Tamils are being persecuted in Sri Lanka is bunkum”, she stressed. “I am talking through experience, though I myself feared the worst at first”.
She thanked DIG (CID) Nandana Munasinghe and the Director, SSP Ravi Waidyalankara for the goodwill extended to her.