By Xinhua,
Colombo : A Roman Catholic priest and human rights activist was killed Sunday by a roadside bomb in an area in northern Sri Lanka controlled by Tamil Tiger rebels.
The Peace Secretariat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said in a statement that Father M. Karunaratnam was killed by a claymore attack on the Mallavi-Vavunikkulam Road at 12:30 p.m.(0700 GMT) by the Army’s Deep Penetration Unit.
The LTTE said Karunaratnam, head of the North East Secretariat on Human Rights, was a longtime human rights activist in the LTTE administered areas.
However, military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara denied any involvement in the event, saying the military cannot be responsible for what is happening in the LTTE controlled areas.
The military is currently engaging the LTTE in at least three different fronts in the north aimed at crushing the rebel group.
More than 70,000 people have died in the island’s separatist armed conflict since the mid-1980s.