Sri Lanka Police have arrested a 24-year-old resident of Udayanagar, Kilinochchi, under the Prevention of Terrorism Act for performing songs glorifying the banned LTTE at a musical event held on May 31 in Navakkuli, Chavakachcheri, Newswire reported.
The Jaffna Divisional Criminal Investigation Bureau found that the suspect had edited four songs from the event and uploaded them to his TikTok account, portraying them as content dedicated to or supportive of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the news agency said.
He was produced in court along with his mobile phone on charges under Section 03(g) of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, No. 48 of 1978. The court ordered him remanded until June 17. Further inquiries are being conducted jointly by the Jaffna Divisional CIB and Chavakachcheri Police Headquarters.
SLPP MP Namal Rajapaksa criticised the arrest in a post on X, accusing the government of “double standards” in applying the PTA and arguing that similar LTTE-themed songs had been used by NPP politicians during the recent local government election campaign without consequence. “A Jaffna District NPP MP reportedly shared such songs openly on social media for political benefit. Where were the Police then? Where was the PTA then?” Rajapaksa asked. While stressing that the LTTE remains a banned terrorist organisation and that he did not support anyone glorifying it, the SLPP MP said accountability must apply equally: “One rule for politicians and another for ordinary youth is unacceptable in a democratic society.” He warned that if the government considered the act unlawful, enforcement must be consistent or the arrest would be seen as a selective abuse of power.
Update — June 5: Sri Lanka Police issued a clarification through Newswire pushing back on social-media claims that the case had imposed a blanket ban on musical performances at entertainment events. Police called such claims “false and misleading,” noting that investigations had instead established the suspect deliberately edited recordings from the concert to include LTTE-supportive content for “wider circulation online.” The clarification put the date of the arrest at June 2 and confirmed the suspect was produced before the Chavakachcheri Magistrate’s Court on June 3 under Section 3(G) of the PTA. Police urged the public not to be misled by false narratives, while reiterating that citizens are expected to act within the Constitution and applicable laws.
Rajapaksa returned to the issue with more pointed detail later on June 5 in remarks reported by EconomyNext, accusing the NPP of having “misled the youth in the North” for electoral gain. He said NPP-linked propaganda during the recent Local Government election campaign had “openly glorified the LTTE” — pointing to a campaign song shared by NPP parliamentarians that promoted a harbour named after Velupillai Parvathi Amma, a statue of Prabhakaran, and a claim that “the ideology of the National Leader and Anura Kumara Dissanayake are one and the same.” “Today, the same government is arresting a young Tamil artist under the PTA over alleged LTTE-related content,” he said. “So, who misled the youth in the North? It was the NPP, driven by its desire to secure Tamil nationalist votes.” Rajapaksa framed the arrested artist as “a victim of the government’s own irresponsible political agenda” and described the broader pattern as “a dangerous double standard in politics: one narrative for the North and East and another for the South.”
The arrest is the latest in a string of PTA-track cases tied to social-media content and Tamil political speech. Northern Province MP K. Archchuna has faced complaint-track scrutiny over an earlier LTTE-themed speech and remains the subject of a parallel firearm case at Mallakam, while wartime cases like the Easter bombing PTA probe involving former intelligence chief Suresh Sallay continue to wind through the courts.
