Tamil nationalist movement leader Pazha Nedumaran shocked the world with the revelation that LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran was still alive and would join the public life soon to announce a plan for the liberation of the Tamil race.
Reading out a statement at a press conference, Nedumaran said that the time was now appropriate for the LTTE leader to come out in the open in the context of the Sinhalese protest against Mahinda Rajapaksa and the international situation.
He further added that the announcement would put an end to rumours and speculations about the Tamil leader’s death which was announced by Sri Lankan Army in 2009 in a video claiming that the DNA samples confirmed Prabhakaran to be dead.
What happened on the day of Prabhakaran’s speculated death?
For the supporters of the Tamil Eelam movement, the morning of May 18, 2009, brought gloom and despair with the news of the death of their beloved leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Prabhakaran, often called ‘The Tamilian Tiger’ by his supporters, was said to be killed by the Sri Lankan Army in 2009 for raging a war against the state. The cause of death was believed to be a single shot to the head at close range.
As per reports, the Sri Lankan army had two former Prabhakaran allies turned government mercenaries visually ID the body; they also took a DNA sample which they claimed matched with Prabhakaran and announced his death to the world. Then they cremated him.
Sources close to the Sri Lankan army’s military intelligence disclosed to media that in the last altercation between Prabhakaran and the Sri Lankan special forces, the LTTE leader’s bodyguards and a core of the Tigers’ fighting force exchanged heavy gunfire.
The exchange of fire did not last very long as the last of the LTTE fighters ran out of arms and ammunition.
According to the sources, when Prabhakaran’s 30 bodyguards exhausted their ammunition, the LTTE chief was captured by the Sri Lankan special forces, while the organisation’s political head Balasingham Nadesan and the chief of the Tigers’ peace secretariat Seevaratnam Pulidevan surrendered to the Sri Lankan army.
With Prabhakaran’s death, the bloody 26-year Sri Lankan civil war came to an abrupt end with little peace in the region.
