COLOMBO: M K Sivajilingam, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) member and an independent candidate in the upcoming Presidential election, has said that he will request the Sri Lankan government to allow him to take Parvathy Velupillai (80), mother of the slain LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, to India for treatment as she is paralysed.
Parvathy was released from the Lankan armCOLOMBO: Thiruvengadam Velupillai, the late father of the slain LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, was “furious” with his son for deciding to fight the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in October 1987, says noted Lankan Tamil journalist D B S Jeyaraj.
Velupillai had returned to Jaffna in 1987 from exile in Tiruchy in Tamil Nadu, with the hope that the India-Sri Lanka Accord of July 1987 would bring peace to his Homeland. But the LTTE, under his son, challenged the IPKF militarily in October that year, and the war which ensued, ended only in March 1990.
“The pendulum had swung the other way again and the father was once again furious with the son.
He blamed the son for acting rashly and starting a fight with the Indian army,” Jeyaraj wrote in Daily Mirror on Saturday.
A dejected Velupillai left Jaffna again for India, and refused to return even when the LTTE got entrenched in the Wanni region, running its own parallel administration.
A peace-loving man, Velupillai wanted Prabhakaran to concentrate on his studies and get a job. He completely disapproved of the son’s militant activities right from the start in the 1970s. When the police were on look out for Prabhakaran, Velupillai had made it clear that he was not welcome in the house.
However, Velupillai mellowed when grandchildren Charles Anthony and Dwaraka were born. He returned to Lanka during the 2002- 2004 peace process.
y’s “protection” following the death of her husband, Thiruvengadam Velupillai (86), at the Panagoda army cantonment on January 6. In the absence of any relatives in Sri Lanka, the government had allowed Sivajilingam to take charge of the body of Velupillai and also look after the widow.
Sivajilingam told Virakesari on Saturday, that Parvathy could be looked after by one of her daughters, Jagadeeswari Mathiyaparanam, who was residing in India. In mid 1980s Parvathy and her husband had lived in Tiruchy in Tamil Nadu.
“If the government of India does not give her a visa, I will bring her to Colombo and request the government here to extend all the facilities for her stay and treatment,” Sivajilingam said.
But political circles here wonder if India would issue visa to Sivajilingam to travel to India because recently on December 27 he was deported for attempting to participate in a pro-LTTE seminar organised by the Tamil National Movement leader P Nedumaran.
TOO ILL TO GO OVERSEAS: Military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara told Express Parvathy was too ill to go overseas. “We have made arrangements to look after her. We might bring her to Colombo for treatment,” he said.
However, the Sri Lankan President’s senior advisor in Colombo had Viduthalai Chiruththaigal party leader P Thirumavalavan that the Sri Lankan government would consider the prospect of allowing Parvathy to go India if a request for it was made.
Of the four children the couple had. Prabhakaran is dead, another son is in Denmark. Of the two daughters, one is in Toronto, Canada, and the other is in Tamil Nadu.