The Hon. M.L.A.M. Hizbullah

¶ 01 In terms of Standing Order 27(2), I wish to draw the attention of the Minister of Lands and Irrigation to land and administrative issues faced by the Muslim community living in Batticaloa District, especially in the Vakarai North Divisional Secretariat area.

¶ 02 Karamunai 2/10 is a village in Mangkeni South GN Division under Vakarai North. Historical records show Muslims have lived there since 1952. There is a nearly 200-year-old Muslim burial ground there. During the war, the LTTE forcibly expelled them; they lost their documents, homes, farms, livestock, chena cultivation and livelihoods, and many loved ones. After the war ended in 2009, they resettled in their ancestral village.

¶ 03 In 1983, the Divisional Secretariat took back from the people the 1956 usufruct documents issued for paddy lands, promising to regularize grants, and issued receipts acknowledging recovery. About 75 acres had old deeds for paddy lands, but no new grants have been issued to date. There are over 700 acres of paddy lands in total. In 2011, 2012, 2016, and 2017, more than 100 Karamunai residents applied for land kachcheri, but none have been held. The Vakarai DS has conducted about nine land kachcheris granting 3,450 permits, yet not a single permit has been issued to Karamunai Muslims. We obtained these facts last month under the Right to Information Act.

¶ 04 Without land permits, the people face inter-generational administrative hardships—unable even to obtain Divisional Secretariat letters required for basic services like electricity connections. About 2,000 acres used by people for agriculture during the war have reportedly been identified by the Vakarai DS for release, per a Divisional Development Committee decision; yet no action has been taken to release lands long inhabited by these people before the war. As a result, the Department of Forest Conservation’s “development reservations” still cover these lands, causing numerous problems.

¶ 05 On 21 October, I raised Batticaloa Muslim land issues in this House. The Hon. Deputy Minister then said a team would be appointed via the Land Commissioner General to resolve these, but nothing has happened.

¶ 06 Therefore, Hon. Deputy Minister of Lands and Irrigation, will you immediately appoint a three-member committee through the Land Commissioner General to investigate and report on these issues in Karamunai and other relevant areas of Batticaloa, and submit recommendations?