By Xinhua
Colombo : Sri Lankan police said Friday that some 186 minority Tamil civilians, who had been sent out of the capital Colombo in a security operation, are to be brought back.
The decision came in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling Friday, restraining the defence authorities from going ahead with their programme to evict the Tamil community from the city.
A police source in the northern town of Vavuniya said that some five buses were leaving Vavuniya headed for Colombo late Friday night.
The armed police in a pre-dawn raid Thursday on the temporary lodgings in Colombo where the Tamils take refuge, forced the occupants to go back to the Northern and Eastern provinces.
The defence ministry said some 376 people including 85 women were sent in seven buses to the war-torn regions.
Thousands of Tamils from the north and east were reportedly staying in Colombo to find jobs, apply for overseas travel documents, among other reasons.
The defence authorities charged that most explosions carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels in Colombo were plotted in these temporary lodgings.
At least two blasts targeting military personnel have occurred in the city since the end of May, killing nine people and injuring over 40.
Opposition parties and rights groups slammed the move to send Tamils back as discriminatory to the minority Tamil community.
The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), an independent think tank, sought the court order against the government action.
Claiming discrimination at the hands of the majority ethnic Sinhalese-dominated government, the LTTE has been fighting for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's 12.5 percent Tamil minority since the 1970s.