Suspected LTTE gunmen on Tuesday shot dead Kingsley Rasanayagam, a former MP from Batticaloa district, known to have been a protégé of the dissident LTTE commander, Col Karuna.
Reliable sources told Hindustan Times that Rasanayagam was killed at about 6.30 pm at Kalviyankadu near Batticaloa town in Eastern Sri Lanka.
Rasanayagam, a retired manager of a bank, was put up by Karuna in the April 2004 Sri Lankan parliamentary elections as a candidate of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (also known as the Tamil National Alliance). Due to Karuna’s influence, he came second in terms of preferential votes.
But Rasanayagam had to resign from the party list of MPs because in Batticaloa district, power had passed from the hands of Karuna to Prabhakaran, the leader of the mainstream LTTE. A Prabhakaran loyalist took Rasanayagam’s place in the list.
Tamil sources said that Rasanayagam was killed because he might become an important organizer of Karuna’s new political party called the Tamil Eela Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (Tamil Eelam Peoples’ Liberation Tigers).
