Residents have given authorities a two week ultimatum to free a land owned by them at Kaiveli in Mullaitivu.
Staging a hunger strike from 24 July, four youths demanded the releasing of the land illegally occupied by the Wildlife Department.
They belong to families in a housing scheme built by the LTTE for 45 of its members in 2000, but who had fled for safer areas by 2009.
Several attempts by them to resettle after the end of the war failed, and the wildlife department demarcated the area in 2012.
Early this month, 20 of these families started coming back.
On 12 July, department officials armed with guns, knives and clubs attacked the occupants and had even brought kerosene oil to set fire to their houses.
Later in the day, the OIC of Pudukudirippu police visited the place, telephoned the divisional secretary and the Grama Niladhari and promised to settle the matter.
With no solution forthcoming, the four youths resorted to a hunger strike to press for their demand.
On the second day of their protest, survey and divisional secretariat officials visited the scene and found the land does not belong to the wildlife department.
With the assistant divisional secretary seeking time to carry out the legal work on the matter, the youths abandoned their hunger strike.
