Mylvaganam Nimalrajan

Mylvaganam Nimalrajan, also spelt Mylvaganam Nimalarajan was a senior Jaffna based journalist who was shot dead by gunmen belonging to the paramilitary EPDP in the Sri Lanka Army's high security zone during a curfew on 19 October 2000.

Career in journalism As a journalist based in the war torn northern Jaffna peninsula during the late 1980s and early 1990s, he reported for various news organisations, including the BBC's Tamil- and Sinhala-language services, Tamil language Virakesari newspaper and Sinhala language Ravaya newspaper as a freelancer. Nimalarajan was one of the few sources of independent news from Jaffna, a strife-torn area where journalists have rarely been allowed free access during the time he reported. that most of the suspects arrested were EPDP cadres, and though had not directly admitted the murder, they had implicated each other.

Government response and results of investigation The then government immediately launched an investigation. 10 people were detained, most of them being EPDP cadres. Even though most of them implicated each other in the murder, the authorities blocked the case for more than a year. 2 suspects, David Michael Collins and a certain Vishua, were released however. Their passports were not confiscated, even though past EPDP cadres, had fled the country. By the end of 2002, none of the suspects were brought to trial. Police had still not finished giving the results back from tests on crucial pieces of evidence found at the scene of the murder; firearms taken from the EPDP, fingerprints found on a bicycle near the scene of the murder, bullet casings and the remains of a grenade. This was all reported by Reports Without Borders, a neutral organisation promoting free media.