Team News Riveting
Chennai, February 13
Fourteen years after the Sri Lankan government declared LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran dead, veteran politician in Tamil Nadu Pazha Nedumaran on Monday claimed that he is alive.
The Tamil leader said Prabhakaran was healthy, and that he would soon make a public appearance.
Sri Lankan Army Spokesman Brigadier Ravi Herath however contested his claim and said that the island nation had all the records, including “DNA certificates”, to prove that Prabhakaran was dead. “We have evidence that LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed in the final battle,” he said on Monday.
Earlier, Tamil Nationalist Movement leader Pazha Nedumaran claimed that leader of outlawed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Velupillai Prabhakaran was “healthy and fine” and would soon “announce a plan for the liberation of the Tamil race.”
Addressing a press conference in Thanjavur, Nedumaran said that the changing global situation and Sri Lanka’s political crisis, including the removal of the Rajapaksa government, breathed a new lease of life to the LTTE Chief encouraging him to step outside. Nedumaran, who is the Tamil President of World Tamil Federation, said it was time to lay to rest “rumours” about the death of the ‘Thamizh Desiya Thalaivar'(Tamil Nationalist leader) Prabhakharan.
“Let me inform you that he (Prabhakaran) is soon going to announce a plan for the liberation of the Tamil race. All the Tamil people of the world should support him together,” he added.
In these critical times, he requests unity among the Tamil Nadu government, Tamil politicians, and Tamil Eelam people to stand with Prabhakaran, Nedumaran said. When asked whether he had contacted Prabhakaran, Nedumaran said he had contact with Prabhakaran’s family member. Based on the information he received, he was “revealing this based on their approval.”