1958 anti-Tamil pogrom

The Federal Party was to hold a convention in Vavuniya. A small incident occurred in Valaichchenai, but as the story reached Polonnaruwa, the story was twisted into a more serious event having occurred.[19] To retaliate, Sinhala hardliners decided to disrupt party members travelling there by rail. Polonnaruwa station was the first to be attacked, on 22 May. Most passengers of the train had gotten off earlier due to the threat of violence in Polonnaruwa. One man was found in the train, and the mobs beat him despite his insistence that he was not a Tamil.

A night mail train in Batticaloa was derailed. Its passengers, mostly Sinhalese, were attacked. Three people — Victor Fernando, Police Sergeant Appuhamy, and Constable Pararajasingham — were killed. Tarzie Vittachi suggests that the derailing was committed by Sinhalese wreckers who made a serious miscalculation, as the passengers were mainly Sinhala and not Tamil.[20] However, this is disputed by historian James Manor who suggests that the perpetrators were more likely to be Tamils retaliating for the earlier attack in Polonnaruwa given that the derailment took place in a Tamil-majority area where anti-Sinhalese violence was rising.[19]

Deadly violence in the Polonnaruwa District began on the 24th. Tamils were killed in the open, as well as Sinhalese who protected them. A deaf, mute labourer of unknown ethnicity was also killed. Tarzie Vittachi recounts the frequent use of rape by Sinhala mobs during the pogrom in his book Emergency ’58, where he describes a Sinhala 'Hamudawa' (army) composed of Sinhala labourers from various state departments and farms, who went on the rampage raping, looting and beating up hundreds of Tamils.[21] Sinhalese who were believed to be hiding Tamils "had their brains strewn about".[22] Polonnaruwa had only a small police presence. Requests for reinforcements were not heeded as the Government seemed reluctant to take the situation in the North Central Province seriously.[23] Those Sinhalese policemen who tried to protect Tamils were attacked by the mobs; a few had severe head injuries causing their deaths. The thugs displayed a temerity which was quite unprecedented. They had complete assurance that the police would never dare to open fire. The Polonnaruwa station was attacked again on 24 May, and nearly destroyed.[24]

That night, D. A. Seneviratne, former mayor of Nuwara Eliya, was shot near Batticaloa while he was on his way to his estate in Kalkudah, though this was alleged to have been a private issue.

In the morning, a truck and car were fired at near Eravur, the latter incident killing an off-duty Sinhalese police officer and two other Sinhalese.[19]

Sinhalese gangs attacked Tamil labourers in Polonnaruwa farms at night. The Tamil labourers in the Polonnaruwa sugar-cane plantation fled when they saw the enemy approaching and hid in the sugar-cane bushes. The Sinhalese mobs however set the sugar cane alight and flushed out the Tamils. As they came out screaming, men, women and children were cut down with home-made swords, grass-cutting knives and katties (a type of cutter), or pulped under heavy clubs. Those who fled were clubbed down or hit by machetes. In Hingurakgoda, rioters ripped open the belly of an eight-month-pregnant woman, and left her to bleed to death.[22] One woman in sheer terror embraced her two children and jumped into a well. Vittachi estimates that 70 people died the night of 25 May,[22][25] though Manor claims that this is an exaggeration.[19]

Tamil refugees in Polonnaruwa were being guarded at the police station. Throughout the day, Sinhalese mobs from various parts of the Polonnaruwa area converged at the station for a nighttime assault. There was only a small police force to keep the crowd at bay. At around 2 p.m., an army unit of 25 men arrived with a Bren gun to aid the police officers. Fearing that the unit's arrival was a sign of more army units on the way, the 3,000 strong mob decided to attack the station before more security arrived. At around 3:20 pm, the mob started to advance onto the police station. The army fired warning shots, but this only made the mob more confident that the army was bluffing. Polonnaruwa District Government Agent Derryck Aluwihare signed an order permitting the security forces to shoot people if necessary. With this, the soldiers fired a Bren gun at the advancing crowd, killing three. The crowd dispersed thereafter.[23]

In the rest of the country, news of the deaths of D. A. Seneviratne and Police Sergeant Appuhamy spread. Violence against Tamils took place in areas like Kurunegala, Dambulla, Galewela, and Panadura. Gangs began beating Tamils in Colombo and several of its suburbs. Shops were burned and looted. At this stage, the violence was largely limited to assault, looting, and arson. That evening, Prime Minister Bandaranaike made an appeal to the nation calling for peace. However, he made it sound as though Tamils had initiated the riots by only mentioning D. A. Seneviratne's murder as a cause of communal tension.[26]

Bandaranaike's appeal ended up triggering far more severe anti-Tamil violence.[26] Widespread rioting along the coast from Colombo to Matara was mainly triggered by the return of Sinhalese fishermen who had been chased to the ocean by Tamil rioters in the Eastern Province.[19] In Kantale, Sinhalese rioters stopped buses that were entering the city and killed anyone who was unable to recite a Buddhist verse, including Sinhalese Christians.[27]

In Panadura, a rumor[26] spread that Tamils had cut off the breasts and murdered a female teacher in Batticaloa. In revenge, a Sinhalese gang tried to burn down the Hindu Kovil; unable to set fire to the building, they pulled out a Brahmin priest and burned him alive instead.[28] Subsequent investigations showed there was no female teacher from Panadura stationed in Batticaloa. Gangs roamed Colombo, looking for people who might be Tamil. The usual way to distinguish Tamils from Sinhalese was to look for men who wore shirts outside of their pants, or men with pierced ears, both common customs among Tamils. People who could not read a Sinhala newspaper (which included some Sinhalese who were educated in English) were beaten or killed.[29]

One trick used by the gangs was to disguise themselves as policemen. They would tell Tamils to flee to the police station for their safety. Once the Tamils had left, the empty houses were looted and burned. Across the country, arson, rape, pillage and murder spread. Though the state police eventually helped to quell the riots, they were accused of being initially inactive and even fanning the riots in several places.[3][6] Some Sinhalese did try to protect their Tamil neighbours, often risking their own lives to shelter them in their homes. There were also several incidents of Tamil women being raped by Sinhalese mobs. One account of rape recounted by Vittachi describes a Tamil officer who became mentally unstable as a result of being unable to defend his wife and daughter from sexual assault:

“Another Tamil officer working in the same Government department was not so fortunate. The thugs stormed into his house and assaulted his wife and grown-up daughter in the presence of his little child. His mind cracked under the shock.”[30]

Sinhalese laborers of the Land Development and Irrigation Department from Padaviya formed a mob armed with firearms, hand bombs, knives, and other weapons. They also had trucks to transpor them. Though they planned on going to Anuradhapura, they took an indirect route on the Padaviya—Kebitigollewa—Vavuniya Road to outmaneuver the army, attacking whatever Tamils they could find on the way.[31] The army and police intercepted the rioters south of Kebitigollewa. They killed 11 rioters, and arrested 343.[32] Some of the prisoners later confessed that they would have gone further south to Matale and Kandy had they not been stopped.[33]

After the Polonnaruwa incidents of 23 and 24 May, the Tamils in Eravur retaliated against isolated Sinhalese homes and trades people. In Eravur, fishermen from the two communities fought on the seashore. Tamil gangs set up roadblocks, beating up motorists believed to be Sinhalese. A Sinhalese man and his wife were set on fire and their belongings were looted. Throughout the Batticaloa District, Sinhalese were mercilessly killed by Tamil rioters. In Valaichchenai, Muslims sheltered Sinhalese who fled from Tamil mobs.[34] 56 cases of arson and attacks were registered in the Batticaloa District, and 11 murders were recorded, but it is believed that the actual number of Sinhalese killed in Karativu alone is far larger than the official statistic.[35] Many Sinhalese had managed to flee by water and land on the southern coast, but others had fled into the jungle, where they had succumbed to hunger and wild animals. The houses and huts of Sinhalese that had already fled were looted and then burned.[36]

No deaths were reported in Jaffna, but some Sinhalese merchants had their inventories burned. Mobs would order Sinhalese out of their properties, loot valuables, and then burn the properties. The behavior of the mobs led politicians in Colombo to suspect that the violence was organized. A Tamil mob attacked the Buddhist Naga Vihare temple, which was rebuilt afterwards. The mob tried to kill a Buddhist monk there, but he was saved by the police. The mob moved onto the Nagadipa Vihare temple at Nainativu and destroyed it, including the dagoba.[37]