The Sri Lanka army is systematically wiping off every memory of slain chief of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Velupillai Prabhakaran. The army blasted the last bunker used by Prabhakaran, located in the midst of thick jungle in Pudukudiyiruppu of Mullaitivu district. The four-storey underground hideout had been the last residence of the Tiger chieftain before he went to Mullivaikkal and thence to Nandikadal, to fight the last battle.
Confirming reports that the bunker was blasted after army troops made the place off bounds to tourists, Lankan army spokesman Brig Ruwan Wanigasooriya said there was no need for the government to retain vestiges of the terrorist era. Asked why the destruction was ordered now, after the place was allowed to develop as a favourite tourist spot over the last three years, Wanigasooriya said the surrounding places had to be cleared of mines before a major blast was set off.
However, political sources said the authorities were keen that the Tamil National Alliance-ruled Northern Province should not turn the place into a monument for Prabhakaran. There is speculation that the other bunker located at Viswamadu would also be destroyed, as indeed the graveyards of the LTTE, known as the Maaveerar Thuyilum Ilam, were levelled.
There is speculation that the other bunker at Viswamadu would also be destroyed. While the Pudukudiyiruppu bunker was stark with nothing in any of its four floors, the one at Viswamadu had a bed with a mosquito net and a refrigerator. Both looked like ordinary houses from the outside, but staircases led to four to six floors underground. At Pudukudiyiruppu one could see a secret exit at the back. There were several layers of check posts around the complex, each check post having an armoured gate which could not be penetrated by shells.
Prabhakaran, 54, under whose leadership Tamil Tigers led a ruthless three decade long campaign against Sri Lanka for a separate Tamil Eelam state, was killed along with his top aides on May 18, 2009, by Sri Lankan Army. “Security forces personnel had asked residents in surrounding areas to take cover at schools and temples nearby, because they had discovered explosives inside the bunker,” the Colombo Telegraph said. Before demolishing the bunker, police from the area evacuated the residents to safe places.