COLOMBO: Kumaraswami Nandagoban, Private Secretary cum advisor to the Chief Minister of the Tamil-speaking Eastern Province, was shot dead by unidentified persons in the outskirts of Colombo on Friday, local media reported.
Confirming the report, a top official of the Eastern Provincial government told to this website's newspaper that Nandagoban alias Ragu (32) and another person, were killed at about 11.30 am while they were travelling in a car in Athurugiriya.
The official said that Nandagoban was a highly educated person who had come back to Sri Lanka from his adopted home in Australia only to assist the island country’s first Tamil-speaking provincial Chief Minister, Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan.
The source said that the killers could be Chief Minister Pillayan’s rivals, who had been out to weaken him. Pillayan is opposed both by the LTTE and the Karuna faction of the ruling Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP).
According to the pro-LTTE Tamilnet website, Karuna had recently demanded the removal of Nandagoban from the Chief Minister’s inner circle.
Karuna had also taken over most of the TMVP camps from Pillayan’s loyalists, sometimes after armed clashes. Karuna, who is now a member of the Sri Lankan parliament thanks to nomination by the ruling United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA), has been a trenchant critic of Pillayan’s demand for more autonomy for the Eastern Province. The tacit support enjoyed by Pillayan from India, has also been an issue with Karuna.
Meanwhile, the LTTE has been gunning for Karuna, since he spearheaded the great defection in 2004, when most of the LTTE cadre from Eastern Sri Lanka, who under him, joined the government side.
Only recently, the LTTE had killed about a dozen TMVP cadres apparently belonging to the Karuna faction. Karuna fears that his cadre has been infiltrated by the LTTE. A few days ago, he asked the Sri Lankan army to screen his cadre to identify and weed out LTTE infiltrators.
According to The Island daily, the Sri Lankan military is alive to the possibility of the LTTE’s infiltrating government-held areas as bogus members of Karuna’s TMVP.
327,730 REFUGEES NEED AID: According to the pro-LTTE Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), the total number of refugees in the two districts of Kilinochchi and Mullaitvu, is 327,730, which includes about 230,000 recently displaced by the war, and 90,000 displaced by the tsunami of December 2004.
Of these, 39,449 families are in Kilinochchi district and 33,327 are in Mullaitivu district.
However, the Sri Lankan government says that the war refugees number less than 100,000.
The TRO says that there is a shortage of food and medicines, made worse by the periodic detention of lorries at the Muhamalai checkpoint by the army. There is also an urgent need for building material for 15,130 homeless families and 5,000 toilet pans, 3,000 baby kits, 3000 maternity kits, mosquito nets, fuel, water purifiers, and non-food relief items for 20,000 families, says TRO.