Hours after a top Tamil nationalist leader's claim that LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran was still alive, Sri Lanka refuted the claims and termed it a mere "joke". Notably, Sri Lanka claims that the leader was killed in 2009 by the island nation's military.
The statement from the island nation came after Pazha Nedumaran, a noted nationalist leader in Tamil Nadu, claimed that the top leader of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) "is doing well" and added, "conducive atmosphere prevails for him to appear now."
"It is a joke"
The statement created a major row in the debt-ridden nation, with several calling Nedumaran's claim right while many claiming it a political statement. This resulted in Sri Lanka's defence ministry dismissing Nedumaran's claim as a "joke".
"It is confirmed that he was killed on 19 May 2009. The DNA has proved it,” Colonel Nalin Herath, Sri Lanka's defence ministry spokesman told the news agency PTI.
It is worth mentioning, Sri Lanka's military ended the nearly three-decade brutal civil war in the island nation in May 2009, by killing the leaders of the LTTE. The bitterly fought campaign began in 1983. The LTTE was fighting for an independent state for the Tamilians in Sri Lanka's North and Eastern provinces.
Though the exact date when Prabhakaran was killed by the Sri Lankan Army was not known, his death was announced on May 19, 2009. The then-president Mahinda Rajapaksa on May 18, 2009 declared the end of a 26-year war in which over 1,00,000 people were killed and millions of Sri Lankans, mainly minority Tamils were displaced as refugees inside the country and abroad.
(With inputs from PTI)
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