Chronology Of Ltte Terror - Part 12
From the Daily News Archives:
The LTTE Killers blast CTO
Wijitha Nakkawita
One of the most peaceful and quiet establishments in the Colombo’s
Fort area decades back was the Central Telegraph Office where operators
connected local or international telephone calls on requests of the
public even during the previous century when a subscriber wanted a call
to an outstation telephone.
The place was known as the home of ‘hello girls’ most of them pretty
young women whose pleasant voices were a delight to callers.
There were also counters for the public to pay for various services
including telex messages and the journalist fraternity who filed stories
to foreign newspapers or news agencies used to visit the place at
various hours of the day or night.
The day was May 7, 1986. The CTO was at work with the usual staff at
their desks and the ‘hello girls’ were busy connecting calls or
answering enquiries and the customers who had come to pay telephone
bills were waiting staid faced till the counter clerks issued their
receipts after accepting payments.
The two storey building put up during the British colonial rule was a
strong and handsome one and sat in the hub of activity of Colombo’s Fort
area facing the main Lower Chatham Street that joined the Olcott Mawatha
and a staff of about 150 and a number of people who had come there for
various matters were also present.
The time on the clocks read 9.23 in the morning. A deafening
explosion rocked the whole building. The glass on the windows splintered
and flew about and shreds of wood and cement plaster, bricks and iron
railings came down on the ground and first floor with the explosion.
Some concrete slabs were broken and some of the debris fell on the
inmates of the building.
Medical staff doing their utmost to save a life |
After disaster struck |
There were shrieks and yells calling for help as some of those who
were under the debris were struggling to free themselves from the weight
on them but they were the luckier ones as 14 among them including some
‘hello girls’ would never breathe again. The terrorists had planted a
time bomb in the building but no one knew how they managed to get into
perform their deadly mission.
In addition to those who had perished not less than 114 people were
injured.
Since it was early morning, Colombo Fort, full of people and the
explosion was heard even outside the city for some distance.
The first floor, a wooden structure made of very strong wood during
the era when the CTO building was put up when timber was available for
the mere asking however came down totally like a card in a pack of cards
left to fall.
However the time bomb device was set up by the LTTE terrorists who
had now become the strongest killer band among the separatist Tamil
terrorist groups and some weeks before the CTO bomb they had virtually
wiped out the TELO terrorist group led by Sabaratnam.
Two godfathers of the Tamil terrorist like M.G. Ramachandran the Sri
Lankan born actor turned politician of Tamil Nadu had first helped all
the racist terrorist groups,EPRLF, TELO, PLOT, ENDLF and LTTE but the
cunning and ruthless boss of the LTTE, Prabhakaran had won the heart of
Ramachandran (MGR)who was the most powerful local politician of South
India at the time.
For even in India the LTTE had gunned down members of the other Tamil
terrorists groups, had tortured some of them before they were killed and
buried them in the desolate bare lands where each of the terrorist
groups from the North of Sri Lanka had ‘camps’ and the Indian
authorities simply looked the other way when a Sri Lankan Tamil
terrorist cadre or leader was killed and no question was asked.
The LTTE was by this time growing in strength thanks to MGR though it
was the Gandhi-Nehru clan of India (Not Mahatma Gandhi or Jawaharlal
Nehru) that had nursed, fed and armed the killer terrorist groups and
given them arms and military training in Dehra Dun and other military
bases with retired Jawans and the Reseach and Analysis Wing coordinated
in the training programs, feeding, clothing, arming and setting up the
serpents that would one day turn to sting the Prime Minister of India
Rajiv Gandhi one time benefactor of the terrorists.
Innocent civilians at the CTO paid with their lives for no crime they
had even imagined to commit and the separatist terrorist group may have
been jubilant that another feather was in their cap. If as we had seen,
the country did not elect President Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2005, the
menace would not have been over, but thankfully it was over now.
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Latest act of terrorism rocks Fort:
Eleven killed by bomb in CTO
Floors crash on employees: 114 injured:
William de Alwis and Srimal Abeywardene
“These attacks only indicate that the LTTE is no longer interested in
a peaceful settlement to the ethnic problem,” said the statement which
noted that Tiger leaders like Prabhakaran and Anton Balasingham are
based in Tamil Nadu.
The Government also said it noted with concern that TULF leader,
Appapillai Amirthalingam also based in Tamil Nadu, had told a Swedish
journalist hours after the Tristar disaster that more bombs are to be
expected.
A terrorist bomb at the CTO rocked Colombo yesterday morning, killing
eleven people including two women and injuring 114. Over 20 of the
injured were in a critical condition. A government statement issued last
evening said that the LTTE was believed responsible for both the CTO and
Tristar explosions. |
“As predicted by Mr. Amirthalingam, another bomb was exploded by the
terrorists. This only proves that Mr. Amirthalingam is aware of
terrorist plans to cause deaths of innocent civilians,” the National
Security Ministry said.
Two persons were arrested in connection with yesterday’s explosion at
the CTO. One of them is a Tamil, described as an interdicted Bank
employee and a resident of Jaffna and the other a Sinhala youth, a
senior police officer said.
|
Three pictures of the scene of the Central Telegraph Office in
Fort, after the bomb blast yesterday morning. Above left: a
dazed and bleeding victim is shepherded t safety. Centre” the
street filled in a minute with a seething crowd that impeded
speedy assistance to the victims: the white circle indicates the
hole left by the explosion; and right: a close-up of the damage.
Pictures by D. B. Liyanage, Tony Preena and Nihal Athulathmudali |
Rescue workers fought their way through a mass of twisted metal,
wooden beams and dislodged plaster - all that remained of the
Telecommunication Department’s payments section in the old style, wooden
floored colonial building - to get the injured.
The wooden floors were ripped out. Nine dead CTO workers were
extricated and nearly a hundred injured were despatched to the General
Hospital, Colombo.
Additional Government Analyst A. R. L. Wijesekere who visited the
scene yesterday said a heavy explosives charge had been used and here
was a possibility that more than one device had been employed.
“The possibility that more than one device had been used has to be
investigated,” he said.
The analyst said that the observations he made at the scene suggested
that the explosives had been placed close to the public counters. The
AJMO, Dr. Sidney Premathiratne and his team of forensic experts also
visited the scene.
Rescue operations were necessarily slow as the floors above the
basement were also being investigated.
Another body, that of Assistant Postmaster S. B. Ranasinghe, was
taken out nearly two hours later. Rescuers were continuing their search
as this edition went to press and there was every likelihood of a number
of seriously injured victims succumbing.
Of the eleven, two were women, of whom one has been identified as
Kusum Ukwatte, a CTO employee, Dr. Lucian Salgado, JMO said.
Five of the dead men identified were, P. Reuben, Victor Perera, B. W.
Abeysiri and S. B. Ranasinghe, all CTO employees. The fifth was S. G.
Sarath who had visited the CTO to send a telex message, Dr. Salgado
said.
CTO workers who were setting down for the day’s work in the basement
office and in the payments section on the street-level, received the
worst of the blast which was so severe that it sent shockwaves
throughout the city.
Several government offices in the vicinity closed for the day, as
workers panicked. The Ministry of state which lies across the street,
asked its employees to return home soon after the explosion. Shops and
other businesses in the adjoining streets opened their doors by 11
a.m.and business continued in a tense atmosphere, with intensive
security checks on clients and customers alike.
Telecommunications sources began estimating the damage yesterday and
said that the main equipment had been unaffected, through some telex
machines had been damaged.
The bomb, according to what was immediately known, was planted in the
street-level office which deals with telegrams, bill payments and
overseas and local calls.
There would have been more than two dozen people on this floor alone,
at the time explosion went off. The floor below (the basement) and the
office above, both separated by wooden floors, were totally wrecked.
Six iron safes in which collections were kept were intact, officials
said.
Military and police personnel moved in a short time after the
explosion, cordoning off Lotus Road and Lower Chatham Street, Soldiers
carrying automatic weapons assisted police to guard the affected
building while police coaxed thousands of sightseers to keep away.
A suspect briefcase found in the vicinity of the block was tackled by
experts who reported it to be harmless.
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*Tomorrow - Midnight massacre of 20 villages
*Saturday -
LTTE explodes Air Lanka Tristar
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