By P.K. Balachandran, IANS
Colombo : Terrorism has claimed the lives of several prominent politicians in Sri Lanka. These include a head of state and government, cabinet ministers, MPs and mayors. Most victims have been Tamils.
It all began July 27, 1975 when the Mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiappah, was shot dead in front of a Hindu temple.
Among the young men who carried out the killing was Velupillai Prabhakaran, who founded the Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) the next year.
With the intensification of the Tamil armed struggle in the 1980s, political targets of much higher profiles began to be taken by Tamil militant groups, the LTTE in particular.
Tamil MPs killed include A. Amirthalingam, Neelan Tiruchelvan, Joseph Pararajasingham and Nadarajah Raviraj.
Amirthalingam of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) was shot dead in a Colombo home July 13, 1989 by a group of LTTE guerrillas with whom he was having tea. Also killed with him was TULF leader V. Yogeswaran.
Ranjan Wijeratne, the deputy minister of defence in the Ranasinghe Premadasa government, was killed in a devastating car bomb explosion March 2, 1991 as he drove to his Colombo office.
Having perfected the art of suicide bombing with the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in Tamil Nadu May 21, 1991, the LTTE blew up Sri Lankan President Premadasa here at the 1993 May Day rally.
A suicide bomber killed presidential candidate Gamini Dissanayake in Colombo Oct 24, 1994.
The second Jaffna mayor to be killed was Sarojini Yogeswaran – widow of the slain Yogeswaran – of TULF. She was shot dead at her Jaffna house May 17, 1998.
Her successor, Pon Sivapalan, died when a powerful bomb concealed on the roof of his Jaffna office exploded Sep 11, 1998.
C.V. Gooneratne, a cabinet minister in the Chandrika Kumaratunga government, fell to a suicide bomber near Colombo June 5, 2000.
Wijeratne, Premadasa, Dissanayake and Gooneratne were from the majority Sinhalese community.
A suicide bomber killed Tiruchelvan, a confidant of Kumaratunga and an internationally admired academic and also from TULF, near his office in Colombo July 29, 1999.
Gunmen killed Joseph Pararajasingham of pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance (TNA) during a Christmas-eve mass in 2005 in a church in the eastern town of Batticaloa.
N. Raviraj, an MP who was critical of the government, was shot dead here Nov 10, 2006.
New Year’s day in 2008 saw the assassination of United National Party (UNP) MP T. Maheswaran. He was shot dead while worshiping at a Hindu temple.
Earlier, V. Yogasangari of the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) was shot dead in Chennai June 19, 1990.
Earlier, Sam Thambimuthu, also of EPRLF, was gunned down outside the Canadian high commission here May 7, 1990.