Police and villagers were accused over the killing on 25 October 2000 of 27 of the 41 detainees suspected of LTTE links.

Among the killed were estate youths and angered estate Tamils gathered at Watalawa railway station four days later and staged a demonstration.

After being informed by the stationmaster, police from Talawakele and STF arrived and their shooting left a youth named Thurairaj Muthukumar injured.

After the protestors were dispersed, a fire broke out in a compartment of ‘Udarata Menike’ that had been stopped at the railway station at the time.

Estate youths intervened and prevented a further spreading of the fire and saved the passengers.

The observation compartment was gutted and one passenger was injured.

People protested against the stationmaster for giving wrong information and summoning the police and threw stones at the railway station.

Ten days later, Muthukumar and 11 others – Sidambarapillai Vasikaran, Vadivel Sivananam, Ponniah Vadivel, Karupaiah Thiagaraja, Vellaisamy Ragamurthi, Palaniyandi Yogeswaran, Arumugan Rajendran, Subramaniam Ravi, Subramaniam Jayaratnam and Raji Balachandran – were arrested by police.

Legal action was filed against them on allegations of violence and causing damage to public property, and they were given bail after being detained at Badulla prison for three months.

During the hearing, Jayaratnam and Balachandran died.

The 10 others are bearing the lawyer fees and appearing before courts for 15 years now.

The late UPF leader Periyasamy Chadrasekaran helped them when he was living.

The hearing was transferred from Badulla to Kandy and again to Nuwara Eliya in 2009.

No charges have been filed in the case yet.

Forty one suspects, comprising the OICs of Bandarawela and Diyatalawa police, 17 other policemen and the rest villagers, were arrested over the Bindunuwewa camp killings.

In a ruling on 01 July 2003, two policemen and two villagers were found guilty and sentenced to death while the rest were acquitted.

Following an appeal, the court of appeal overruled the death sentence on 17 May 2005.