CAT/C/58/D/599/2014 8.7 In this regard, the Committee notes the State party’s submission that the complainant has not provided any objective evidence to substantiate his claims nor any relevant new evidence in his submissions to the Committee that had not already been considered by the State party’s administrative and judicial procedures, in particular, with respect to the complainant’s claims that: after leaving school in 1998 at the age of 10, because attendance was too dangerous, he spent the next six years living with family and friends in Colombo; he was subjected to frequent security checks by the military at his place of employment in Colombo; he was abducted by five men in a white van, beaten and interrogated regarding LTTE involvement and released on the same day, then spent three months in the hospital; he was threatened by five men when he refused to attend a proGovernment rally; and he subsequently fled out of fear. The Committee also notes the State party’s submission that the complainant’s description of the events lacked detail; he provided little information about his assailants and the injuries sustained; and he did not produce any hospital records or other proof of that incident nor details of where he stayed after fleeing the family home. 8.8 The Committee further notes the State party’s submission concerning the lack of credibility of the complainant’s statements owing to inconsistencies in his testimony, including with regard to the date on which he was abducted by five men in a white van and the description of the visit by the five men who wanted him to attend a pro-Government rally. 8.9 The Committee notes the State party’s observations that if the Sri Lankan authorities believed that the complainant was involved with LTTE in April 2007, it would be difficult to understand that they issued him a passport three months later in July 2007; that none of his family was ever questioned about LTTE involvement, notwithstanding the complainant claim’s that he was imputed with having pro-LTTE political opinions by virtue of his brother’s involvement with LTTE; and that the complainant was not arrested or detained after the abduction incident in his village or while working in Colombo during the years when the conflict was in progress or subsequently. 8.10 Regarding the complainant’s claim that he risks being subjected to torture upon return to Sri Lanka owing to his status as a failed asylum seeker of Tamil ethnicity, the Committee, while not underestimating the concerns that may be legitimately expressed with respect to the current human rights situation in Sri Lanka and treatment of, inter alia, failed asylum seekers from overseas, recalls that the occurrence of human rights violations in one’s country of origin is not sufficient in itself to conclude that the individual runs a personal risk of torture. 16 The Committee observes that the 2012 UNHCR Eligibility Guidelines no longer refer to a presumption of eligibility for protection of Sri Lankans simply on the grounds that they are Tamils originating from the north of the country, even though it does caution that a merits-based assessment, taking into account individual circumstances, is still warranted and that Tamil ethnicity and place of origin may still be factors increasing the vulnerability of persons within other risk profiles whose protection claims warrant particularly close attention. 8.11 In this context, the Committee refers to its concluding observations on the combined third and fourth periodic reports of Sri Lanka, in which it expressed serious concern about reports suggesting that torture and ill-treatment perpetrated by State actors in Sri Lanka, both the military and the police, had continued in many parts of the country after the conflict with LTTE had ended in May 2009.17 The Committee also refers to the preliminary 16 17 12 See communication No. 426/2010, R.D. v. Switzerland, decision adopted on 8 November 2013, para. 9.2. See CAT/C/LAK/CO/3-4, para. 6.