COLOMBO, Dec. 6, Reuter: Twenty four people have been killed in violence between ‘Muslims and Tamils in Sri Lanka’s eastern district of Bhitichluh and 27hour curfew was imposed in the area today to prevent further clashes.

The government said Tamil separatist guerrillas killed seven Muslim Home Guards and the wife and child of a Home Guard in the Muslim village of Khihhnkudi last night.

Residents of the area said the Home Guards killed 15 Tamil bus passengers in two hijacks.

The government said in statement the Tamil guerrillas belonged to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the most powerful of the rebel groups fighting to set up an independent state in the north and east of the island.

Muslim Home Guards are local youths trained and armed by the government to protect their own villagers.

The residents told Reuters by telephone that Home Guards stopped one bus as it passed Khihhnkudi early today and shot dead all 11 passengers. ‘Most worked for the Ceylon

Transport Board, the state organization which runs bus services, and had been on their way home after working late.

The residents said Home Guards killed four Tamils and wounded three when they opened fire at a bus at Khihwnchikudi last night.

The government said a 27hour ‘curfew had been imposed in Bhitichluh from 3 p.m. to prevent Moslem Tamil clashes in the area”.

Bhitichluh About 230 km (145 miles) northeast of Colombo has 330,000 people, About 70 per cent are Tamils while most of the others are Moslems. It is within the area which Tamils want as a separate homeland,

President Junius Jayewardene said today the main obstacle to a settlement of the ethnic strike between Tamils and the Island’s majority Sinhalese was the Tamil demand for a merger of Tamil dominated northern province with Tamil minority eastern province.

He told the annual meeting of the ruling United National Party the government could not agree to a merger because such a union was ‘opposed by the majority of Tamils, Moslems and Sinhalese of the east.

Article extracted from this publication >> December 12, 1986