A 24-year-old singer from Kilinochchi has been remanded under the Prevention of Terrorism Act over two songs allegedly glorifying the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at a concert in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, police said on Friday.
The Jaffna Divisional Criminal Investigation Bureau opened the investigation after receiving information about songs performed at a musical concert held on 31 May 2026 in the Nawakkuli area, within the Chavakachcheri Police Division, Ada Derana reported. Video clips from the performance were subsequently circulated on social media.
Police said the suspect — a resident of Udayanagar, Kilinochchi — was arrested on 2 June 2026 and produced before the Chavakachcheri Magistrate’s Court the following day. The court remanded him until 17 June 2026.
Investigators allege that two songs performed by the artist at the concert had been edited by him before being uploaded to his personal social media account “in a manner that glorified and promoted” the LTTE. Police said they had established that the recordings were intentionally modified to include content supportive of the banned organisation before publication, facilitating wider dissemination.
The arrest has been booked under Section 3(G) of the Prevention of Terrorism Act No. 48 of 1979 — the same statute under which detention orders are currently being challenged in the Suresh Sallay case and in other ongoing PTA proceedings that the opposition has cited in recent weeks.
Issuing a separate clarification, police pushed back against social-media posts claiming the force had banned songs at musical shows and entertainment events. Such reports are “false and misleading”, police said, while emphasising that the public is required to act in accordance with the Constitution and applicable laws.
The Chavakachcheri arrest has drawn immediate political reaction. Opposition parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa on Thursday accused the National People’s Power government of selectively applying the PTA, citing what he said were LTTE-themed campaign songs shared without consequence by NPP-linked accounts during the recent local government election in the north. Sarvajana Balaya MP Dilith Jayaweera, speaking to reporters at his party head office on Friday, called the government’s broader pattern of detention orders the most serious abuse of the Act in Sri Lanka’s history and called for a national-level protest.
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