January 1, 2008 Tamil MP Shot Dead in
Colombo By P.K.
Balachandran
Colombo
T. Maheswaran, an outspoken Tamil member of the Sri Lankan
parliament, was shot dead along with a bodyguard when he was praying
at a Hindu temple here to usher in the New Year.
One or more gunmen, armed with automatic weapons, fired at the
unsuspecting politician, his entourage and also other worshipers at
about 10 a.m. One of his five bodyguards was killed and 12 people
were injured.
The bleeding MP, from the opposition United National Party (UNP),
was rushed to the Colombo National Hospital in critical condition.
But frantic efforts to save him failed, said Hector Weerasinghe, the
hospital director.
Being New Year's day, the Ponnambala Vaneswara temple, dedicated to
Lord Siva, was crowded with worshippers when terror struck.
It was not clear if Maheswaran's family was among the worshippers.
Panic enveloped the temple and its environs after the shooting.
A leading military expert who did not want to be identified said the
assassination had serious security implications because the temple
was located outside the Colombo harbour, a high security area.
"If the Tamil Tigers have done it, it is cause of more worry because
it shows they are prowling in the city in a high security zone," the
expert said.
The government and the police refused to blame anyone for the
assassination. In normal circumstances, the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE) gets blamed quickly for any major act of violence
in Sri Lanka.
Maheswaran had been facing threats from all sides, a political
source explained. He had a controversial career as a politician and
businessman in Colombo and in Jaffna when the LTTE held sway over
the northern Tamil-speaking district.
A leading Colombo-based trader and also a former minister,
Maheswaran had represented Colombo and Jaffna districts in
parliament in his long career in politics.
In recent times, he had threatened to expose people behind a string
of killings, abductions and extortions in Jaffna.
He had told a private TV channel recently that he would come out
with an expose in parliament when it meets Jan 8.
Maheswaran had also complained that the government had reduced his
police security drastically in the middle of December, leaving just
two constables to protect him.
He said he had to employ private security guards at a very high
cost.
UNP spokesman Tissa Attanayake blamed the government for the
tragedy.
"The government had pruned his security in order to kill him," the
web edition of the Daily Mirror newspaper quoted Attanayake as
saying.
Leading Tamil newspaper editor N. Vithiatharan told IANS that the
international community needed to put pressure on the government to
restore state security to political leaders.
The government had drastically cut security cover provided to former
ministers Anura Bandaranaike and Rauff Hakeem as well as Tamil MP
Mano Ganesan.
The withdrawals allegedly followed the crossover of Bandaranaike and
Hakeem to the opposition ranks and after Ganesan was chosen the
first runner up for this year's Freedom Defenders Award given by the
US government.
Bandaranaike, a brother of former president Chandrika Kumaratunga,
had said that the government had thrown opened "the front gate to (LTTE
chief Velupillai) Pranbhakaran's assassins" to kill politicians like
him.
Ganesan announced that it would not be possible to live in Sri Lanka
given the threats to his security. He said he was going to go
abroad.
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