The teachers and students of the university had submitted a memorandum on the death of two Jaffna University students to the Governor calling for an impartial inquiry. The memorandum was in three languages, English, Sinhalese and Tamil.
The Governor in turn has sent a copy of the letter he addressed to President Maithripala Siresena to the President of the Arts Faculty Students Union Rajeevan, who could not understand the contents of the letter as it was written in Sinhala language.
He promptly returned it back to the Governor with the following note on it in English: “We could not understand what you are saying here. We are trying to say that Sri Lankan official languages are Sinhala and Tamil.” The returned letter carried the seal and signature of the Students Union President. It was a copy of a letter the Governor had written to Sri Lankan President Maithipala Sirisena requesting the latter to conduct an inquiry into the incident on October 20, in which two Jaffna University students were killed.
Commenting on the incident, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP from Jaffna,M.A.Sumanthiran said that the Governor had only sent a copy of the Sinhalese letter he had written to the President .If he was writing to the students union President, he would have written in English. However, given the sensitivity over the language issue, the Governor could have attached an English translation of the letter, Sumanthiran said.
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