Tamils fear prison and torture in Sri Lanka, 13 years after civil war ended

The threat of a bullet in the leg or having his fingernails ripped off was the ordeal faced by one man

The sun had barely risen the morning that the military turned up for Vijay*. Grabbing him from his home in a village in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka while his pregnant wife and baby lay asleep next to him, they blindfolded him and drove him deep into a jungle.

For the next 12 hours, in a small dark shack away from prying eyes, they interrogated Vijay. Pliers were repeatedly brandished, with threats that his finger nails would be removed if he did not give the army officers the information they wanted.