"Create atmosphere for the journalists to work in secure conditions"

Mr. Devakumar, Jaffna correspondent for Maharaja Television, and his associate Mahendran Warden were stabbed to death by a group of unidentified people on Wednesday.

Condemning the murder, New York based Committee to Protect Journalist (CPJ) calls on Sri Lanka government to “create conditions that allow journalists to work with some measure of security.”

Devakumar is the latest journalist to fall victim to the spiral of violence that has wracked the Jaffna peninsula since fighting between the government and Tamil Tigers resumed in 2006 RSF statment

The murder is “an even greater loss for the people of Sri Lanka who have been deprived of one of the few remaining sources of information about the conflict in the Jaffna peninsula,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon.

Spokesman for the Free Media Movement (FMM), Sunanda Deshapriya, has told CPJ that the killing is believed to be directly related to Mr. Devakumar’s reporting.

RSF 'outraged'

Devakumar was one of few remaining journalists reporting from the peninsula.

Many journalists were reluctant to work from Jaffna since BBC journalist Mylvagaman Nimalarajan was shot dead in his home in October, 2000, days after general elections.

	RSf says Devakumar was one of the few dared to report from Jaffna

Paris based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the watchdog was “outraged” by the murder of journalist Paranirupasingham Devakumar.

"Devakumar is the latest journalist to fall victim to the spiral of violence that has wracked the Jaffna peninsula since fighting between the government and Tamil Tigers resumed in 2006," RSF said in a statement.

Both the RSF and CPJ urged authorities to take every step that the killers wouldn’t go unpunished “as so many other cases”.

'Threats' by Defence Secretary

RSF added: "Although no suspect has yet been found, the security forces should explain how this attack took place in an area of the peninsula that is supposed to be under close military control”.

	Mr. Devakumar was killed days after Mr. Noyahr was severely beaten

In a press conference on Thursday, opposition leader Ranil Wickramasinghe said the government should take responsibility the murders of nine media workers killed in Jaffna since 2006.

Mr. Devakumar was killed days after two journalist union leaders, Sanath Balasuriya and Poddala Jayantha, were allegedly threatened by powerful Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

Associate editor of The Nation, Keith Noyahr, was abducted and brutally assaulted by an unidentified group, last week.

Mr. Noyahr has criticised Sri Lanka Army (SLA) commander, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, in his defence column on 11 May.