Radio manager abducted in Colombo

Colombo: Sri Lankan police on Tuesday said it suspected a missing ethnic Tamil radio station producer had been abducted.

Assistant news manager Nadarajah Kuruparan, 36, worked for a Tamil language radio station.

He was last seen leaving his house early on Tuesday morning. His abandoned car was found shortly after on a side street in the seaside capital.

"We suspect he must have been abducted - this looks like an kidnapping," said police Deputy Inspector General Pujitha Jayasundara, although he said he did not know who was behind it.

There have been frequent journalist killings during the course of Sri Lanka's two-decade civil war, particularly of minority Tamil writers and broadcasters who are either seen to back Tamil Tiger rebels or who have angered them.

Kuruparan's station, Sooryan, is part of a larger media group and is not seen to take sides.

Of the five media workers killed this year, four were Tamils. Rights groups say the government has done practically nothing to investigate the killings.

"Abduction must have been some powerful support," said Sunanda Deshapriya, convener of Sri Lanka's Free Media Movement (FMM).

"In high security Colombo, to abduct someone is not an easy task." The number of checkpoints and patrols in Colombo has soared in recent weeks as the island's 2002 ceasefire collapsed into open warfare between the military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), killing hundreds and raising fears of attacks in the south.

Ceasefire monitors and rights workers have reported increased activity by armed anti-Tiger groups linked to the government who have been accused of dozens of killings of suspected rebel supporters, although the government denies any link.

Aid workers have also come under increasing attack, with 19 killed in August alone.

Families of some of 17 workers for an international aid group who were massacred in the northeast blame the government, and monitors say the investigation is stalled.

The Free Media Movement said there seemed to be a deliberate attempt to intimidate Tamil journalists and publications.

"If this situation is going to continue, I don't think any independent Tamil journalism will remain in this country," said FMM's Deshapriya.

"(But) right now what we are asking for is abductors to release him and not to harm him," he added.