LIBERATION TIGERS OF TAMIL EELAM EXPLODES PASSENGER VAN IN FRONT OF MAJOR GIRLS SCHOOL IN COLOMBO KILLING 3 AND INJURING 7

The bomb was attached to the under carriage of a vehicle owned by EPDP member

By Walter Jayawardhana

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) adopted once again mass civilian attacks of car bombs by exploding a passenger mini van, in front of a major girl’s school in Colombo killing three and injuring seven.

The bomb explosion took place in front of St. Paul’s Girl’s School Milagiriya in Bambalapitiya, close to Wellawatte, the major residential area of Colombo Tamils.

Police said this time the suspected terrorists had planted the car bomb on the undercarriage of a passenger van, probably by a magnet, owned by a member of a pro-government Tamil political party, the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP),
M. Sivadasan a former member of parliament and the Chairman of the state owned Palmyra Board. He was also injured in the timed or remotely controlled bomb blast. His leader Douglas Devananda is the Hindu Affairs Minister of the present government, who has survived many assassination attempts by the LTTE terrorists. Sivadasan was scheduled to meet Devananda shortly after. The explosion occurred while the vehicle was on the move.

Some passengers of the vehicle have been on the hit list of the LTTE terrorists for a long time police detectives investigating the blast said. They suspected a magnetic bomb attached to the undercarriage of the vehicle at some place it had been parked earlier and detonated by a time device or a remote control device. The suspected undercarriage bomb blast flew the roof and some seats of the vehicle sky high when the explosion occurred. One seat was found hanging from a nearby tree.

The car bomb explosion came immediately after a definitive defeat the terrorist group received at Muttur at the hands of the Sri Lanka government’s security forces when they allegedly tried to take over a government naval port as a first step to occupy the very strategic Trincomalee harbor in the Eastern province. Still, fighting is going on around Trincomalee

The Police said the car bomb explosion had all the hallmarks of the LTTE which has the exclusive use of plastic explosives among politico-terrorist groups in Sri Lanka.

The explosion took place at 2.50 p.m. Sri Lanka time August 8.

Among the killed was a 3-year old child who got caught in this terrorist attack when she was walking on the side walk with her mother. All the dead have not been identified yet.

Police constable Chandrasiri (24) V.H.P. Wijesena, W.A.V. Fernando, M.Sivadasan, Mrs. Sumithaarachi , Miss Janitha sevvandi and S. Pasindu have been identified as the injured.

The explosion took place probably underneath the vehicle in which the Tamil political party member fiercely opposed to the LTTE in Sri Lanka was traveling at that time. The owner of the vehicle, who was injured and hospitalized is out of danger the police said. An EPDP spokesman said that 56 members of their party have been so far assassinated and numerous others have been abducted by the terrorist group since the LTTE signed a ceasefire agreement with the former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. The agreement disarmed all Tamil groups except the LTTE.

Before the explosion the security forces had detected many hauls of plastic explosives and weapons being transported to major areas in the South and North of the country. One was exclusively intended to assassinate the country’s President, the Police said. The explosives were hidden in the specially designed false bottom compartment of a truck.

Immediately before this explosion the security services also detected identified LTTE terrorists transporting a load of weapons and ammunition in a converted fuel tank of a truck at a checkpoint at Muhamalai in Jaffna, that contained ten T-56 rifles and 40 magazines filled with live ammunition.