COLOMBO: Sri Lanka would prolong slapping a ban on the LTTE, giving the rebels a chance to return to the negotiating table, a senior minister said as the government battled heavy criticism leveled against mass arrests of Tamils in a recent security sweep in Colombo.

“If a ban on the LTTE is imposed now it would hurt chances of future peace talks,” Chief Government Whip Jeyaraj Fernandopulle told reporters addressing a press briefing in Colombo.

Calls for the banning of the Tamil Tigers within Sri Lanka as well as the abrogation of the 2002 ceasefire agreement intensified by anti LTTE groups in the South after two bombs exploded in Colombo last Wednesday killing nineteen persons and injuring over forty.

But government officials say despite heavy fighting that has gripped the north following the bombings, doors are ‘still open’ to the LTTE to return to peace talks the guerilla group abandoned last year.

“President Mahinda Rajapakse has shown that he is seriously committed to dialogue with the LTTE by not banning them within the country,” Fernandopulle said.

The government’s assertion that it remains committed to usher in peace despite fears that the country has slid into an all out war comes in the wake of over two thousand Tamils being arrested in Colombo and suburbs within the past week.

“We have made arrests as part of security measures to apprehend LTTE numbers who may have infiltrated into the South. But we are in the process of releasing those whose bona fides were established”, military officials said.

According to statistics provided by the government a total of 1,952 persons of the 2,554 individuals taken into custody have been released.

In a joint statement several civil groups in Sri Lanka, including the Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Free Media Movement and the National Peace Council, have urged the authorities to ensure that existing laws are respected while carrying out security checks.

The statement said the levels of harassment and intimidation, as well as of arbitrary arrest and detention faced by the Tamil community in Sri Lanka at the hands of the State as well as the LTTE and other armed groups, have greatly increased over the past year.

“The recent arrests and detentions that have taken place in the course of cordon and search operations carried out island-wide come in the wake of this general pattern,” the organisations said.

Meanwhile Amnesty International (AI) has asked the authorities to adhere to President Mahinda Rajapakse’s directive with regard to registering detainees and notifying their families and the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission of the place of arrest.Military officials said around 100 persons who have been confirmed as having direct links with the LTTE had been detained for further investigations under special detention orders of the Defence Secretary. The suspects included a Sinhalese woman, sources said.

“It is the public we are safeguarding by making arrests of suspicious persons. They (the rebels) are suffering heavy defeat in the north and their usual way of retaliation is by targeting innocent civilians in Colombo”, Military spokesman, Brigadier Udaya Nannayakkara said.

Fighting escalated on Wednesday across the north with at least twelve rebels and three soldiers killed in separate incidents, military sources said. Defence Ministry officials said an LTTE bunker was destroyed in pre-emptive strikes into the LTTE positions in northern Mannar, early on Wednesday.