"The magnitude of the problem is yet to be assessed. But the fact remains there are a few groups like this operating," Asoka Wijetilleke, Deputy Inspector General of the police's foreign intelligence department, told a news conference.

"Some of them, which include ex-soldiers, serving soldiers, police officers and underworld gangs and other organized elements have been arrested," he added. "That does not mean we have fully and completely investigated the whole thing."

Government officials were not immediately available for comment.

Sri Lanka's Human Rights Commission says nearly 100 abductions and disappearances have been reported to them so far this year in the capital Colombo, the eastern district of Batticaloa and the besieged northern Jaffna peninsula.

That in turn comes on top of 1,000 cases reported during 2006 since the resumption of a civil war that has killed around 68,000 people since 1983.

STATE INVOLVEMENT?

Some see a parallel between abductions in well guarded government-run areas and a rash of disappearances when the then government crushed an uprising by hardline Marxists in the late 1980s -- and see state involvement.

Inspector General of Police Victor Perera said more than 400 people had been arrested as part of a police operation to crack down on abductions and disappearances since September, but did not say how many of those were serving members of the security services.

"There is a lot of attention by foreign organizations on the human rights situation here and these killings and abductions cause big problems for the government internationally," Perera told the news conference. "We suspect that they are being done to discredit the government."

Police have found five dead bodies dumped in the past week in Colombo and the north-central district of Anuradhapura. Police have not yet identified the victims found in Anuradhapura on Tuesday, whose faces were badly burned.

The government has angrily rejected allegations that troops are involved in abuses, abductions and massacres, but promised to investigate.

UN envoy Allan Rock says he has credible evidence that elements within the security forces have helped to abduct children as soldiers for a former band of Tamil Tiger rebels who broke away from the mainstream group in 2004 and are now called the Karuna faction.

"I totally refute that allegation because we have not seen anything, an iota of evidence, to point the finger to security force involvement in this because there's no necessity for the security forces to assist anyone, especially the Karuna faction," Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told Reuters in an interview last week.

Experts say history shows very few of Sri Lanka's disappeared have resurfaced, while killings continue to mushroom -- more than 4,000 people have been killed in the past 15 months alone.

Courtesy: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030601401.html