Colombo, May 5 (PTI) A Sri Lankan court was told on Monday that a large quantity of gold jewellery belonging to civilians of the island nation's north was handed over to the police.

The jewellery items were taken into military custody at the end of the LTTE's military campaign in 2009.

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The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had run a military campaign for a separate Tamil homeland in the northern and eastern provinces of the island nation for nearly 30 years before its collapse in 2009 after the Sri Lankan Army killed its supreme leader V Prabhakaran.

The military took over the civilian jewellery from the LTTE to be later handed over to their rightful owners.

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The police's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) informed the Colombo chief magistrate's court of the discovery of the jewellery.

The CID told the court that a probe into the approximately 10,000 items has been launched by the police.

The items were officially handed over to the police on May 2.

It was reported that the Sri Lanka Army was to hand over the gold and silver items to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka through the National Gem and Jewellery Authority to obtain a valuation of the items.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)