By DPA
Colombo, June 29 (DPA) A politician of a minority Tamil party was killed in a hand grenade attack in eastern Sri Lanka as eight others were injured in two separate claymore explosions in the northern part of the island, military officials said Friday.
Unidentified men lobbed a hand grenade killing Thillainathan Udhayakanthan, the village council chairman of Thirukkovil, 420 kilometres south-east of the capital Colombo, Thursday night.
Military officials said the motive of the killing was not known but the victim represented the pro-Tamil rebel Tamil National Alliance (TNA).
TNA members in the area have been under threat from the rival Karuna group, a breakaway faction of Tamil rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
In a separate incident in Chettikulam, Vavuniya, 240 kilometres north of the capital four civilians including two school children and a soldier were injured in a claymore explosion targeted against a passenger bus on Friday morning, a military spokesman said.
In Jaffna, 410 km north of the capital, two soldiers and a civilian were also injured in a claymore blast on Friday.
Fighting has escalated during the past 18 months in the north and east and more than 5,000 have been killed.