Police arrests suspected LTTE cadre and his father in Colombo

Daily Mirror reports that a suspected cadre of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who had escaped from an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Vavuniya District and his father who had brought him to capital Colombo were arrested by the Colombo Central Division Police while they were hiding in a lodge in the city. The father of the suspect is a Sinhalese and is married to a Tamil. The father had been brought up by a Tamil businessman in Nochchiyagama, to whom he had been given over by his parents when he was a small child, a Police source said. The Tamil businessman had given him a Tamil name and he had later worked as a driver at the Health Ministry before retiring. One of his sons had joined the LTTE but had fled from Mullaitivu and had taken up residence in Nochchiyagama for some time. During the last stages of the war in Puthumattalan the son had crossed over to the Government controlled areas disguising himself as an ordinary citizen. He had been later referred to an IDP camp in Vavuniya from where he had escaped and had joined his father in Nochchiyagama. His father had then accompanied him to Colombo with the intention of sending him abroad.


Meanwhile, following reports of some LTTE cadres held in welfare centers in the Vavuniya-Mannar region escaping to the South, in some instances with the connivance of Security Force personnel, the Government has strengthened security measures in the area. The army, too, has reportedly been deployed in support of the Police, now tasked with arresting the escapees.