The Sri Lankan Tamil journalist Nimalarajan Mylvaganam, called “the voice of Jaffna” and known for his critical reporting on government-linked paramilitary groups, was shot dead in his home in 2000. His case remains unsolved.
14 February 2025
Posters commemorating Nimalarajan Mylvaganam (third from left) and other killed or disappeared journalists on display during mass protests in Sri Lanka in 2022. Twenty-five years after his murder, his sister clings to hope that a new government in Colombo will finally end impunity for crimes against journalists. IMAGO/NurPhoto
In Sri Lanka, where decades of ethnic conflict have left deep scars, some journalists dared to tell stories that others feared to voice. Nimalarajan Mylvaganam, considered to be one of the few independent voices from the war-torn Jaffna peninsula in the North of Sri Lanka at the height of the country’s decades-long civil war, was one of them. He reported for various news organisations, including the BBC’s Sinhala (Sandeshaya) and Tamil (Tamilosai)services, the Sinhala-language Ravaya weekly and the Virakesarinewspaper in Tamil. In addition to covering atrocities during the civil war, he reported on sensitive topics such as paramilitary activities and election violence. But his bravery came at a cost.
On 19 October 2000, gunmen silenced his reporting with bullets. Nimalarajan was 39 years old. His assassination underscored the perilous climate for journalists during Sri Lanka’s civil war – and left his family and the journalism community in Sri Lanka grappling with questions of justice and accountability.
Nearly 25 years later, his sister Nimalarani Mylvaganam clings to hope that a new government will finally act to break the cycle of impunity for crimes against journalists.
GROWING UP IN COLOMBO in the early 1970s, Nimalarani loved sitting on her brother’s lap. Morning, afternoon or evening, it was her favourite seat – a memory she treasured until she left Sri Lanka decades later. Her brother would hold her close, telling her stories as she perched there.
“He was not just my brother but my second father,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion.
In 1995, Nimalarani migrated to Canada, got married, and settled down there. She still has fond memories of her visit to Sri Lanka in 1999, when her “second father” met her husband and children for the first time.
“He was so happy to see my kids,” she recalled wistfully. Her son, then three years old, still recalls how his uncle, or maama in Tamil, drove him around Jaffna on his motorcycle for hours.
“That was the last time I saw him. I never thought it’d be the final time,” Nimalarani said.
One year later, her brother was brutally murdered. Gunmen burst into his house in Jaffna and shot him five times. They also attacked his father with a knife and hurled a grenade, injuring his mother and his then 11-year-old nephew.
Nimalarajan’s nephew, Prasanna, now living in Canada, remembers vividly how, just the day before, his uncle had taken him on a motorbike ride to find a pair of shoes. Less than 24 hours later he was gone, and Prasanna was left badly injured himself. The attack occurred during curfew hours in Jaffna’s high-security zone, close to several military checkpoints.
At the time of Nimalarajan’s killing, Sri Lanka was engulfed in intense conflict. The civil war between the government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had created a highly militarised and polarised environment, particularly in Jaffna. The political climate was volatile, marked by heightened ethnic tensions, election-related violence and the suppression of dissent. Journalists faced heightened threats from all sides, including the military, paramilitary groups and the LTTE, for exposing wartime abuses.
In May that year, the Sri Lankan government, under Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, banned the Jaffna-based Tamil daily Uthayan and blocked broadcasts by the BBC World Service and CNN. In Colombo, two weekly newspapers, the English-language Sunday Leader and the Sinhala-language Irida Peramuna, were shut down for violating censorship laws after reporting on the death toll during fighting in Palaly, a small town in Jaffna. At the time, all news reports were required to be passed through an official censor known as the Competent Authority, with reporting on the ongoing fighting and especially the losses the Sri Lankan army was sustaining subject to restrictions.
The 2000 general election, held against this tense backdrop, was marred by violence and allegations of vote-rigging, with Kumaratunga and the ruling People’s Alliance remaining in office. Nimalarajan’s fearless journalism made him a threat to powerful factions, ultimately leading to his assassination.
He left behind his wife and three daughters under the age of five at the time of his death.
“He was such a kind person. Everyone loved him,” Nimalarani recalled. “He cared so deeply about our family and others. That’s why people in Jaffna, Kilinochchi and beyond still commemorate him every year on his death anniversary.”
Born in Colombo as the second of five children, Nimalarajan grew up with his elder sister Premarani and younger sisters Kamalarani, Selvarani, and Nimalarani. The family lived in Colombo until the 1983 riots, widely known as Black July.
The family was living in Wattala, a suburb of Colombo, when these violent anti-Tamil pogroms erupted – the culmination of months-long tensions, violence and discrimination that escalated when the LTTE killed 13 Sri Lankan soldiers in an ambush in July 1983. Sinhala mobs, often with government complicity, attacked Tamil homes, businesses and individuals across the country, particularly in Colombo. Thousands of Tamils were killed, their properties were destroyed, and many thousands were displaced. The violence marked a turning point for Sri Lanka, intensifying ethnic divisions and fuelling the Tamil separatist movement.
“Some people came to kill us but our neighbours – who were Sinhalese – protected us. They kept us in a safe house nearby and brought food for us. In fact, all the neighbours guarded us. We stayed in that safe house for about a month,” Nimalarani said. “But we couldn’t hide all the time, so my parents decided to move to Jaffna.”
This was their second move due to racial tensions. In 1979, the family had already been forced to move to Wattala from Rajagiriya, another Colombo suburb, due to anti-Tamil sentiment in their neighbourhood.
Following Mylvaganam’s murder and the attack on his parents and nephew, the family moved once again. This time, his wife, children, parents and nephew moved to Canada. Today, no member of his extended family lives in Jaffna.
IN THE AFTERMATH of the killing, six suspects were arrested. But after a lengthy legal process, the Jaffna Magistrate’s Court ordered their release in May 2021, following advice from the attorney general’s department. At the time, two of the six suspects were already overseas.
The Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), a paramilitary group turned political party, is accused of orchestrating the murder in retaliation for his reporting, though the party denies the allegations. Initially fighting alongside the LTTE, the EPDP later aligned itself with government military forces to fight against the LTTE, eventually going on to having their members elected to Sri Lanka’s parliament. During the civil war, the EPDP was implicated in serious human-rights violations, including extortion, enforced disappearances, torture and extra-judicial killings, particularly in the Jaffna peninsula. The EPDP’s leader, Douglas Devananda, lost his seat in parliament in the November 2024 election.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an international watchdog group, said at the time of the murder: “Local journalists suspect that Nimalarajan’s reporting on vote-rigging and intimidation in Jaffna during the recent parliamentary elections may have led to his murder.”
As Nimalarani recalls, her brother received several death threats before the murder: “He said he had a lot of warnings. One day my mother picked up the phone, and she was told that ‘your son is going to die soon’.”
The family urged him to join his sisters, already in Canada. Under pressure from his parents and sisters, Nimalarajan promised to leave Sri Lanka, but he was in no mood to give up his journalism. His last dispatch to the BBC was about malpractices during the general election, especially in EPDP strongholds. Most of the arrested suspects were EPDP cadres, but none admitted to the murder, dismissing the charges against them as politically motivated.
“Everybody knows who killed him but there is no proof – nobody saw the attackers,” Nimalarani said. “It was dark when they came. Our family only heard what happened.”
Nimalarajan’s mother, Lily Theres, and his father, Canapathypillai Mylvaganam, have passed away without seeing justice for their son’s murder.
In 2010, his father, Canapathypillai, told the BBC Sinhala service from Canada: “The people responsible for his murder are in the government. As a result, nothing has been done to find the killers.” Later on the same year, he told the press-freedom group Reporters without Borders: “I would like people to remember him as a courageous journalist who served his community.”
IN FEBRUARY 2022, the War Crimes Unit of the Metropolitan Police in London arrested a 48-year-old man linked to Nimalarajan’s murder. The suspect was later released. According to the police, no one has been formally charged in the United Kingdom for Nimalarajan’s murder.
Adam French, a police spokesman, said: “In terms of the person who was previously arrested, I can confirm that they have not been charged at this stage, but they remain under investigation and our enquiries continue in respect of this investigation.”
In a statement issued on 4 June 2024, the police appealed for more information on the murder, stating: “Counter terrorism detectives investigating allegations of war crimes linked to the Sri Lankan civil war in the early 2000s are appealing for anyone who might have information that could assist their investigation to contact police.”
Dominic Murphy, head of the police’s counter-terrorism command, said the need was for “as much eye-witness testimony as possible” to build a case leading to prosecution.
When questioned about whether the suspect would be extradited to Sri Lanka if the Sri Lankan government made such a request, French said: “In terms of extraditing any individuals from the UK to a foreign country, that would be something that the UK’s Home Office would consider should any such requests be made by a foreign country, so it would be a question for the Home Office, although I believe that they tend not to discuss specific individuals or cases.”
For nearly 25 years, justice has been elusive in the murder of Nimalarajan, who was sometimes called the “voice of Jaffna.” However, the new National People’s Power government, elected last year and led by Anura Kumara Dissanayake as president, has vowed to expedite and re-open investigations into longstanding unresolved crimes, including crimes against journalists, committed during previous regimes.
It is not clear whether any previous government made a request to extradite the suspect arrested in the United Kingdom. Nalinda Jayatissa, a cabinet spokesman and the present health and media minister, said that he would look into the current status of the murder inquiry before commenting about extradition of any suspects.
THE CPJ HAS urged the new government to reopen inquiries on attacks on journalists over the years.
“Justice has remained elusive for the fatal shooting of Sri Lankan journalist Mylvaganam Nimalarajan for 24 years too long,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “We call on the newly-elected government of Sri Lanka to oversee a fresh and impartial investigation into Nimalarajan’s murder, as well as dozens of other gruesome attacks on journalists during and in the aftermath of the country’s 26-year civil war that ended in 2009. No stone should be left unturned in pursuing accountability for all perpetrators.”
Nimalarani agreed. “Not only my brother, but a lot of people also never got justice,” she said. “Many people have lost brothers, sons, fathers, daughters... I hope they all will get justice.”
Yet she found it difficult to keep talking about her brother’s murder. “When I talk about it, I get stressed. I can’t forget it, but I don’t want to keep talking about it. It is very hard.”
She added after a pause, “They didn’t just kill my brother.” Her voice was soft but resolute. “They killed my second father. Now, I feel like nobody is here for me anymore.”
Just as many in Sri Lanka’s North and East have bestowed faith on the new president, Nimalarani is also hopeful that Dissanayake will deliver justice for serious crimes committed over the years, even after decades of waiting. This would signal a pivotal transformation in the country’s approach to accountability and reconciliation.
“I hear the president is making positive changes. I hope he will find justice for my brother.” Her voice carried a calm determination. “It’s been nearly 25 years since I lost him. Only God can decide, but I’d be happy if justice finally comes.”
© Himal Southasian 2024