Brigadier Samarasinghe Quotations

It is a baseless allegation against the security forces. It never happened close to our checkpoint. If it had, a lot of civilians would have seen it.

It is a deliberate campaign against the army. We are professional. We would not fire shells at a sensitive time like this. We have not fired artillery or mortars at them for four years now.

Those farmers were working in their paddy fields when they were taken and shot.

There are 11 killed. Earlier they thought it was 12. One is critically injured -- they thought he was dead but he is not. Also two foreigners in a van were injured.

We have a farm there. The farm is not maintained properly, because we don't have (enough) people. So we can hand it over to them as an open prison and they can work there and we can get vegetables.

We don't abduct anybody. We are not even holding anybody -- even those we take in on cordon operations are handed to the police and appear in the magistrates' court.

The shooting has taken place in an area frequented by the Tigers.

The navy is heavily patrolling the area. They requested air support.

All troops are on alert for any eventuality. We are continuing to conduct normal searches.