Iraq Hostage - International appeal for the release of Sri Lankan Tamil Dinesh Dharmendra Rajaratnam

Sign on-line Appeal:  http://tamilinfoservice.com/manitham/form/petition/8.php#SIGN

"WE the undersigned well wishers of Dinesh Dharmendra Rajaratnam and his family earnestly appeal for his release with immediate effect said to have been taken hostage by the Iraq Islamic Army.

Mr. Rajaratnam is a Kuwaiti-based transport company driver and he was abducted along with a second drive, Abul Kashem Faruk from Feni, a Bangladeshi national on 28 October 2004, near a U.S. military base in Iraq.

Mr. Rajaratnam aged 37 is a Sri Lankan national, is a father of three children 10, 12 and 14, had gone to Kuwait last year in the hope of earning enough to provide a better education for his children.

"He only went for a job. Nothing else. He poses no threat to anyone," his wife Doreen Rita Rajaratnam who lives in her small wooden home just outside the capital, Colombo. "I am begging them to release him. His children and I need him. We can't live without him."

"The children are getting bigger and he wanted to be able to give them a good education," Doreen said.

Rajaratnam's father, 64 year aged old man Karuppiah Rajaratnam, appealed in trembling voice and in tears: "I appeal to the people who have taken my son, to please free him back to us and not to harm him."

"He is my only son. All our hopes and expectations are pinned on him," the old man said in.

According to his family Mr. Rajaratnam was not happy with his work as a truck driver in Kuwait and wanted to come back to Sri Lanka. The family said they had paid Rs.68,000 to secure the driver's job in Kuwait.

His wife told that "He wanted us to send a fax message to his employer saying that there was a very pressing need for him to return home immediately." His brother-in-law Pullaiya Suresh told that "he was not paid the salary that was promised therefore he wanted to return back to Sri Lanka."

WE the undersigned well wishers of Mr. Rajaratnam and his family appeal the hostage takers to release Rajaratnam, the innocent Sri Lankan truck driver and also Abul Kashem Faruk from Feni, Bangladesh without any harm immediately. "