Backed by over thirty years of experience in the army, Hendawitharane gives daily briefing to the President on security matters and is the official security adviser to the President.
Two Tamils who escaped the extra judicial violence under the command and influence of Maj. Gen. Hendawitharane have migrated to western countries recently and have provided very valuable first hand account of the modus operandi of the operations of the Maj. General.
Their stories are scary testimonies of the state complicity in the systematic violence that are deliberately prevented from being investigated and also the climate of fear prevailing is preventing any complaints or investigations being undertaken.
The victims when interviewed were eager to speak about their terrible experience but feared for the safety of their relatives in Sri Lanka by publishing them in the media.
Sri Lanka Guardian will maintain anonymity of the persons’ identity and any mention of factual accounts or incidences in which they were victims that may lead to exposure of these individuals. The gruesome and compelling natures of the evidences were withheld to respect their concerns.
However, the Sri Lanka Guardian will engage with any international human rights organisations or the UN Commission to arrange interviews with the victims to unearth the modus operandi of the Brigadier Hendavitharane’s intelligence network of state sponsored criminality in the country.
According to evidence, Brigadier is implicated in many of the extra judicial activities of the state against its citizens.
He was responsible for forming the Deep Penetration Unit of the army. Whilst successful in targeting the LTTE men, this unit is also responsible for killings of innocent civilians in the operations.
Anonymous groups of the military have been set up by the army intelligence unit headed by Maj. General Hendawitharane to engage in various levels of crimes all over the country to suppress opposition to the President. These groups are headed by criminal minded army officers and they undertake covert operations on the instructions of the head of the army intelligence service. Impunity is guaranteed to these official perpetrators through the Brigadier.
Of these violent units, there are two notorious groups that are operating in the north under the official army command. One is known as Ranjith group. This group is headed by an army officer who is a Muslim and he is called with the pseudonym name to deny the identity of him and to rebut any claims of abuse by the army.
Rajith is said to be the most ruthless of the groups in the north. The clandestine Ranjith group of the army is currently operating in the Vanni area and said to be involved in many unreported human rights abuses.
Sri Lanka Guardian has photographic evidence of an individual who experienced repeated torture that included burning of his body and genitals with cigarettes and hot iron box and scars of beating with wire rods by Ranjith himself and his group. The person is physically disabled and cannot engage in any heavy work.
There is first hand evidence that the clandestine Ranjith group was involved in the gang rape of a mother of two Anita Annalingam of Kokkuvil, Jaffna in 2008. She was gang raped by Ranjith himself and his men and her dead body was mutilated with the use of acid and thrown into a derelict house in Osmania Road in Kottadi in Jaffna. (Sri Lanka Guardian reported this account 26 October 2010)
The second clandestine group of the army is known as Ranjan group. They too are operating like the Ranth group in the Northern Province. Rajan’s real name is unknown and like Ranjith this name too is used to deny any claim of abuse by the army.
According to information, these clandestine groups are responsible for current wave of violence in the north.
Even the killings in the south are carried out by the army’s clandestine units coming under the direct leadership of Major General Hendawitharane.
Murders of Sunday Leader founder and editor, Lasantha Wickramatunga and many other disappearances of media persons were carried out by these specialist groups.
When we spoke to a person closely associated with the military intelligence, he confirmed to us in anonymity that the Maj. General is complicit or had the full knowledge of all the extra judicial killings, white van abductions, violence and War crimes in Sri Lanka.
According to our source, the killing of the vociferous opposition politician Sripathy Sooriyaarachchi who was killed in an accident on February 8, 2008 is the work of the clandestine military intelligence unit of the Maj. General.
The crimes committed under the leadership of Maj. General Hendavitharane is said to be very extensive and are even not known to Gotabaya Rajapakse who is being accused of war crimes in the war against the LTTE.
The source who had knowledge of Hendarawitharane’s activities said in anonymity that the Intelligence Head has more crimes than the well known LTTE’s Pottu Amman or even the Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse.
He is said to be enjoying media scrutiny due to the secret nature of his operations and due his successful anti-media campaign.
 According to information provided by two victims about the conduct of the army, Army’s Intelligen...){kind=link}
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