COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka's largest Tamil party has urged the government to resolve a series of long-running heritage disputes in the country's Northern and Eastern Provinces and to demonstrate that the state's archaeology authority operates without ethnic or religious bias.
The Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) said its lawmakers had raised the concerns directly with the Director General of the Department of Archaeology, Prof. D. Thusitha Mendis, at a recent meeting, calling for fair solutions acceptable to all communities to problems surrounding the department's work in the two provinces.
The party was represented by its general secretary, M.A. Sumanthiran, a President's Counsel, and by the Batticaloa District lawmaker Shanakiyan Rasamanickam.
Mr. Rasamanickam said Tamil confidence in the department would take hold only if it were seen to function without ethnic or religious discrimination. To that end, he called for the removal of 54 shops operating within the premises of the Thirukoneswaram Temple in Trincomalee, one of Sri Lanka's most revered Hindu shrines, and for the withdrawal of court cases filed against the Poratheevupattu and Valaichenai Pradeshiya Sabhas.
He also asked the Director General to visit Batticaloa District in person to examine archaeological disputes at several sites, including the Thanthamalai Murugan Temple, and to work toward outcomes acceptable to the Tamil community.
Mr. Sumanthiran criticized the department's official emblem, arguing that it carried symbols representing only one religion and did not reflect the identities of the country's other faiths and ethnic communities. He called for the emblem to be redesigned to represent all religious and ethnic groups. The Department of Archaeology falls under the Ministry of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs.
The party also questioned whether the department had any involvement in the establishment of 42 Buddhist temples along a 37-kilometre stretch of Kuchchaveli, in the Eastern Province, and pressed for the immediate approval of long-delayed development work at the Thirukoneswaram Temple, including construction of a clock tower.
ITAK further urged the government to guarantee that Tamil worshippers can freely exercise their religious rights at sites including Kurunthurmalai and Vedukunari Malai. It said existing court orders, if properly enforced, would safeguard those rights, but alleged that actions taken in violation of judicial rulings continued to obstruct Tamil worshippers in practice.
Disputes over archaeological sites in the north and east have simmered for years, with Tamil political parties, Hindu clergy, and civil society groups accusing the department of facilitating the expansion of Buddhist heritage claims in predominantly Tamil areas. Kurunthurmalai has been a particular flashpoint: in October 2025, Mr. Rasamanickam publicised a complaint to the Criminal Investigation Department alleging that a departmental officer had scattered Buddhist religious objects across nearby land that was subsequently recorded as an archaeological site.
The Department of Archaeology has historically maintained that its work is aimed at protecting the country's archaeological heritage irrespective of ethnicity or religion, and that it is guided by the Antiquities Ordinance rather than by communal considerations.
