A day after inmates began a hunger strike demanding their release in Sri Lanka’s Tamil dominated Northern Province, the chief minister has demanded expediting of pending cases against over 200 Tamil political prisoners languishing in several jails.

In a letter to President Maithripala Sirisena, CV Wigneswaran raised concerns over the safety of the Tamil prisoners who are calling for a Presidential pardon.

“The problem is a human issue that should be dealt with both passion and empathy, given the number of years that these unfortunate human beings have been kept incarcerated without trial. I believe that if we could take steps to give those unfortunate persons the assurance that steps would be taken in respect of their cases within a specified period of time they would be satisfied,” said Wigneswaran in his letter.

The inmates, many of them without trial since 2009 when the civil war ended, said that they will not suspend their fast unto death till they get an acceptable solution.

The chief minister has called for measures to prepare a list of prisoners, categorising them according to the offences in respect of  which they have been taken into custody and all detainees who are suspected of committing minor offences could be provided a general amnesty, or at the very least they may be released on bail immediately.

Wigneswaran also proposed that all detainees suspected to come under the provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), but against whom no cases have so far been filed, could be released on adequate bail.

Hundreds of ethnic Tamils have been lodged in jails without trial since 2009, when Sri Lanka’s military crushed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels in a decades- long conflict for control of the island’s northern Jaffna peninsula.

Tamil and human rights group have called for repealing of PTA, introduced in 1979 to combat LTTE’s acts of terrorism in the early stage of their three decades old separatist campaign. (PTI)