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| By Subhojit Goswami |
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009 (09:55:45) |
| Tags : LTTE, Tamil civilians, Issues, India |
Prabhakaran dies, marks the end of a villainous era |
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| Kolkata: Velupillai Prabhakaran. A beefy man in his early 50s with a butterfly moustache. The name does not evoke any sense of terror until it is preceded by the phrase 'LTTE chief'. Credited with more than 30 years of tyranny and relentless attempts to establish terror, this LTTE doyen commanded awe from the nationals of both India and Sri Lanka.
The first active initiator of the movement against the discrimination approach adopted by the Sri Lankan government, Prabhakaran believed in revolutionary socialism. Born on 26th November, 1954, Prabhakaran has witnessed the inhuman treatment meted out to the Sri Lankan Tamils by the dominant Sinhalese population.
Prabhakaran had been a close observer of the inhuman treatment meted out to the Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese. Those hard-to-accept incidents could be the major source of his hatredness and ultimate desperation. Thus, arms struggle was too tempting for him to resist. He committed his first political murder by assassinating the mayor of Jaffna. This triggered the intensity of his ruthlessness and violence and terrorism started to steer his succeeding actions.
Although his final errand was to establish an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka, but ultimately he fitted himself in the role of a terrorist resorting to violence. Prabhakaran's decision to form LTTE (Liberation Tamil Tigers Elam) in 1976 was driven by the idea of creating an egalitarian society on the grounds of ethnic discrimination experienced at the hands of Sri Lankan people.
Sri Lanka, perhaps, witnessed the longest existing insurgency with Prabhakaran and his brainchild LTTE leaving no stone unturned to scare government and compel the authority to submission. With more than 90,000 civilians losing their lives, the members of this liberation group continued with their hostile operations. Accused of hosts of crimes like, terrorism, organized crime, terrorism conspiracy and murder, Prabahakaran managed to escape every attempt of capturing him and varied his modus operandi as the situation demanded.
Leader of one of the well-equipped insurgent groups with its own army, navy and air force, Prabhakaran remained stubborn in his demand. The cases of genocide and ceaseless sufferings of the civilians won him the title of a seasoned terrorist. The death news of this 54 year old hard-to-pin-down leader was more than welcoming for the Sri Lankans as it marked the end of a devilish era. Incidentally, Prabhakaran's death came three days prior to the 18th death anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi, who was assassinated by a woman Tamil Tiger suicide bomber in May 21, 1991.(IANS) |
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