On June 12, 1991, 152 minority Sri Lankan Tamil civilians were massacred by members of the Sri Lankan military in the village Kokkadichcholai near the eastern province town of Batticaloa. The Sri Lankan government instituted a presidential commission to investigate the massacre. The commission found the commanding officer negligent in controlling his troops and recommended that he be removed from office, and identified nineteen other members of the Sri Lankan military to be responsible for mass murder. In a military tribunal that followed in the presidential commission in the capital city of Colombo, all nineteen soldiers were acquitted. Background information Batticaloa district forms part of the Eastern province of Sri Lanka. Within the Batticaloa district, during the late 1980s and early 1990s a total of 1,100 civilians were disappeared and assumed killed. In the cluster of villages around Kokkadicholai there were two notable massacres, one in 1987 and the 1991 incident. 1991 massacre On the 12 June 1991 following a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) landmine attack on the Sri Lankan Army, a number of Tamil civilians in the Kokkadichcholai region were massacred by the Sri Lankan Army. The Human Rights agency University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR) estimates that over 123 civilians were killed, although the Sinhalese dominated police force (who are known to minimise evidence), certified the death of only 32 individuals. Locals also reported that six Tamil women were raped, including two sisters. The elder one was found by her father trying to conceal her breasts with her plaited hair, whilst the younger sister was found in a shop in a state of shock. The police also denied there was rape, although this has been contradicted privately by medical officials afraid to speak out in public. The incident Kokkadicholai is in reality a collection of number of hamlets close to the lagoon west of Batticaloa city. The dominant ethnic group was the minority Sri Lankan Tamils belonging to the Mukkuvar caste who were mostly farmers. There was an army camp within the main hamlet that used to be supplied with food via a ferry that was transported by a tractor to the camp. On June 12, 1991, about 12:45 PM an improvised explosive device was detonated under a supply tractor that killed two Sri Lankan Army soldiers. Following the explosion, more soldiers started moving from Kokkadichcholai to the scene of the explosion. At this army camp,