By IANS,
Colombo : At least four members of the Tamil Tigers breakaway faction were killed after “unidentified gunmen” attacked them in Sri Lanka’s east around midnight Monday, the military said.
Five members of the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP) also went missing following the attack at Black Bridge in Chenkalladi in Batticaloa district.
Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said the police were trying to identify and arrest the attackers.
The TMVP is led by Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, who broke away from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2004 and has since sided with the Sri Lankan government.
Karuna was appointed recently as an MP of the ruling coalition of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, after he returned to Sri Lanka from Britain, where he served a nine-month imprisonment for illegal entry.
The pro-LTTE TamilNet website said the LTTE carried out the attack.
“A commando unit of the LTTE attacked a key paramilitary camp of TMVP Karuna faction, killing four operatives and capturing six gunmen from the camp,” TamilNet said, adding eight assault rifles were also seized.
The attack came barely two days after the TMVP held a protest rally in the east against the perceived efforts by political parties in Tamil Nadu to stop the military campaign against the Tamil Tigers in the north.