ANOTHER FOUR CIVILIANS HAVE BEEN KILLED BY THE LTTE WHILE MORE CLAYMORE MINES TARGETTING THEM FOUND

By Walter Jayawardhana

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has selected civilian targets for their assassinations and other violence after failing militarily especially in the Eastern Province.

They have also started blaming their rivals the Karuna Group and the military for these violence against the majority Sinhalese ethnic group.

After killing six construction workers in Eravur and 17 bus passengers in Koduwattuwan near Ampara both in the Eastern Province now they have struck rice farmers transporting their rice stocks for sale.

In an assasination , the Aralaganwil Police said, the LTTE killed four rice farmers who were transporting unmilled rice, which is called paddy here, for sale , shooting them with small arms fire.
The crime against these civilians happened at Nidanwela 17 kilometers South of Aralaganwila, March 5 at 9.30 a.m., the police said.

The police said they were searching for the culprits in the area. Police said three farmers died instantly while the other one died after admission to the Aralaganwila Hospital.
From April 1, the total civilians killed by the LTTE rose to 27 , with these assassinations, the Ministry of Defense said.

In the Western Province the LTTE also tried many more civilian killings at Wattala but they failed. Acting on information by civilians the security forces discovered three claymore mines in the Gamunu Palace area on the Negombo Wattala road inside a building. The 12 kilograms each claymore mines were diffused by the Bomb Disposal Unit of the Sri Lanka Army later.

Seven suspects, including a Sinhalese woman in the Modera Mattakkuliya area have been arrested by the police for questioning