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.[18] 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. The following night a train in Batticaloa was derailed, its passengers, mostly Sinhalese, were attacked, and three people 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.[19] 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.[18] The Polonnaruwa station was attacked again on 24 May, and nearly destroyed.[20]

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. On the night of the 25th, Sinhalese gangs attacked Tamil labourers in Polonnaruwa farms. 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, 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.[21] One woman in sheer terror embraced her two children and jumped into a well. It has been estimated that 70 people died the night of 25 May.[21][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 next morning, a small army unit of 25 men arrived, but found itself confronted by a civilian Sinhalese mob of over 3,000.[23] The crowd dispersed after the soldiers fired a Bren gun at them, killing three.[23]

On 26 May, riots had started with the death of Nuwara Eliya mayor D.A. Seneviratne the previous day. Soon gangs began beating Tamils in Colombo and several of its suburbs. Shops were burned and looted.[24] Tamil women were subjected to rape.[6] 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.[18] 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.[25]

In Panadura, a rumor[24] 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.[26] 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.[27]

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. Sinhalese who were believed to be hiding Tamils "had their brains strewn about".[21]

Sinhalese laborers of the Land Development and Irrigation Department from Padaviya formed a mob armed with guns and began roaming the northern border areas in trucks on May 29. 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.[28] The army and police intercepted the rioters south of Kebitigollewa. They killed 11 rioters, and arrested 343.[29] Some of the prisoners later confessed that they would have gone further south to Matale and Kandy had they not been stopped.[30]

On May 24, 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 is suspected by some to have been a private issue. On the 25th, a truck and car were blown up, killing a Sinhalese police officer and two other Sinhalese.[18] Soon after the Polonnaruwa incidents of May 23 and 24 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.[31] 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.[32] 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.[33]

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.[34]