By IANS,
Kuala Lumpur : The Malaysian police have sounded a high alert following a media report that said Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran may have fled to Southeast Asia. The police were working closely with India, Sri Lanka and the Interpol.
Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan said he had ordered a nationwide alert so that his men could be on the watch for Prabhakaran who leads the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that is listed as a terrorist organisation in several countries.
“If Prabhakaran is not here, my men will be monitoring all entry points into the country to ensure he does not enter the country.
“We are also using our local intelligence network to ascertain if he is already in the country,” Musa was quoted as saying in New Straits Times Thursday.
He said the police would also work closely with its counterparts in Sri Lanka and India and Interpol for further intelligence on Prabhakaran’s whereabouts.
Musa was commenting on Singapore’s Straits Times report on the possibility that Prabhakaran could have fled here after Sri Lankan troops closed in on the last remaining Tamil Tiger stronghold of Mullaitivu.
In the report, Indian analysts said Prabhakaran, who had led one of the bloodiest insurgencies in the region for nearly three decades and started the cult of suicide bombings, could have fled to Thailand or Malaysia.
LTTE is seeking an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka.
Malaysia is home to two million-plus Tamils, who settled here during the British era, either coming directly from India or via Sri Lanka.
Running Prabhakaran’s profile along with the news on the police alert, the New Straits Times said Prabhakaran is a hero to many Tamils, but “to the Sri Lankan Government, the Sinhalese majoirity and many around the world, Prabhakaran is a ruthless terrorist who would do just about anything to achieve his aims”.
The profile carried a picture of former Indian prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi slain in a suicide attack in 1991 for which LTTE has been blamed.
Prabhakaran’s elder sister, Vinothini Rajendran, in a Canadian National Post interview last year, had said that Prabhakaran had imbibed the ideals of Indian freedom fighters from an early age.