At a time when the government is at a decisive juncture in establishing reconciliation between the North and South, in order to mitigate the damage caused by this incident at least to some extent, it is the only course of action that can be taken, several government ministers had informed the president.

The ministers had reminded the president of the Katunayake incident that took place in 2011, where a youth had been shot by police and Mahinda Balasuriya having to resign from his position in order to prevent the situation taking a turn for the worst.

We condemn student deaths - TNA

The Jaffna student shooting incident has received publicity both here and abroad by now.

The Tamil National Alliance in a statement issued subsequent to the incident have vehemently condemned the shooting of the two students.

The leader of the TNA, and The Leader of the Opposition, R. Sampanthan MP met President Maithripala Sirisena while attending an event in Trincomalee and raised concerns regarding the incident. Since then, a special police unit has been deployed to Jaffna to investigate the incident on the orders of the President and the police officers who had allegedly involved in the incident has been taken into custody, the statement read.

Sampanthan who also spoke to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and expressed his dissatisfaction regarding the incident, has also requested the IGP to conduct an impartial investigation and take immediate action.
Subsequently, issuing a statement the government claimed that a special committee had been appointed in order to investigate the incident. Further, five police officers were arrested over the incident and their service suspended.

The CID too had commenced an investigation regarding the shooting of the two students on Thursday night.

No final verdict

Meanwhile, responding to questions posed by journalists in Anuradhapura, Defence Secretary Karunasena Hettiarachchi said that no final verdict had been reached with regard to the post-mortem examination conducted on the two students.

Expressing his views Defence Secretary Hettiarachchi said that not only in the North, there were similar incidents that were taking place in the South as well. However, he assured that an impartial investigation would be carried out regarding this unfortunate incident.

The father of one of the students, S. Wijayakumar told the BBC Sandeshaya that he had requested for a fair investigation as there were no visible signs on his son’s body to indicate that he had died due to an accident.

When inquired by the BBC, a senior police officer had confirmed that a bullet had been found from the body of one of the students.
However, the Jaffna Police had earlier stated that the two students had died as a result of a road accident.