Order issued to suspend excavation of Mannar mass grave

Colombo (News 1st): The Mannar Magistrate T. Sarawanaraja has issued an order suspending the excavations at the Mannar mass grave for another 3 months. A discussion chaired by T. Sarawanaraja was held regarding a date to recommence the excavations at the Mannar mass grave. An official who attended the meeting said that attention was focused on providing police protection to the excavation site in the coming weeks. T. Sarwanaraja instructed the officials to present to the court the forensic, medical, and other reports on the mass grave within the next three months. A date to recommence the excavations will be decided upon based on these reports. The carbon dating report compiled by the Beta Analytics Centre in Florida was handed over to Mannar Magistrate - T Sarvanaraja recently. It was revealed that the excavated skeletons belonged to people who lived between 350 - 600 years ago. The Mannar mass grave excavation has so far unearthed 335 skeletal remains of people, some of which are of minors.