Youth from the North join Sri Lanka police

Achieving a milestone Sri Lanka Police Department has recruited 356 youth from the Tamil-dominated North for the first time in 30 years and they are to join the force today.

Inspector General of Police Mahinda Balasuriya will hand out the appointments to the new recruits who have undergone six months training at the Police Training School.

The new recruits will include 20 female police officers. Some of the new police officers are fluent in all three major languages of Sri Lanka, Sinhala, Tamil, and English.

During the three-decade long war with the Tamil Tiger terrorists the Tamil youth from the North were not recruited into Sri Lanka's security forces. As a result there is a shortage of Tamil-speaking law enforcement officers to serve in the North and East.