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| Friday, 16 July 2004 |
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High drama in batticaloa prison by Ranil Wijayapala The internecine clashes between the LTTE Vanni leadership and the Karuna faction came to a head yesterday with two Karuna loyalists gunned down inside the Batticaloa prison, police said yesterday. The main victim Kanapathipillai Mahendran alias Satchi Master was acting as a spokesman for Karuna now estranged from the LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. The latest killing brings the number of Karuna loyalists eliminated to three within the last two days in Batticaloa. In another incident as reported in the pro-LTTE Tamilnet website another Karuna loyalist was killed and three others seriously injured on Wednesday afternoon by LTTE Wanni cadres. DIG Eastern Province Neville Wijesinghe told the Daily News that Kanapathipillai Mahendran alias 'Satchi Master' and Sarvanamuttu Shanthakumar, close associates of breakaway LTTE leader Karuna, were killed by a fellow inmate said to an LTTE supporter. Thiyagaraja Mullitharana, another inmate who received gunshot injuries during the incident was admitted to the Batticaloa hospital, Police added. Mahendran Puvidaran (22) a one time PTA detainee and inmate of the Batticaloa prison undergoing a sentence for crime and responsible for yesterday's killing of the two Karuna loyalists took refuge on a rooftop but surrendered to the Police around 11.10 am, Wijesinghe added. After surrendering to Police, he claimed that he killed 'Satchi Master' as he was harassing fellow inmates in the prison, DIG Wijesinghe added. The inmate surrendered to Police with a pistol, hand grenade and a mobile phone, Batticaloa SSP Mahesh Samaradivakara told the Daily News. The LTTE Wanni leadership last week accused 'Satchi Master' for giving telephone interviews to London-based Tamil Broadcasting Corporation, acting as a spokesman of the breakaway leader Karuna under the name 'Maran'. Kattankudi Police had arrested 'Satchi Master' in possession of weapons and hand grenades. According to reports the LTTE leadership in Batticaloa has stepped up apprehending cadres loyal to 'Karuna'. Another key associate of Karuna was killed in an ambush by one of their special jungle warfare units in Batticaloa Wednesday afternoon. "We ambushed a small paramilitary Karuna group carrying small arms upon information provided by civilians. We recovered the body of a key person of the Karuna Group. A search is on to apprehend the others," an LTTE 'military' officer was quoted in the Tamilnet website. The rivalry between the two LTTE factions commenced with the killing of an LTTE political activist allegedly by Karuna supporters on Black Tigers' Day in Vantharamoolai. The LTTE Batticaloa town Political Wing Leader 'Senathiraja' who received gunshot injuries on Black Tigers Day also succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday. Dhanapala to visit Batticaloa The Secretary General of the Peace Secretariat Jayantha Dhanapala will visit the Batticaloa district office of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission today. Dhanapala will meet two Government appointed officials and the Nordic head of the Batticaloa office. This is the first visit to Batticaloa by Dhanapala, since he assumed duties as the head of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process. He is also due to visit the other district offices in Jaffna, Mannar, Vavuniya, Trincomalee and Ampara in the next few weeks, a Peace Secretariat news release said. |
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