Despite the military defeat of Tiger guerillas in May, a female suicide cadre had plotted recently to kill an unidentified VIP visitor to IDP camps in Vavuniya, a Police officer in the district said. “However, we go to know it when she was about to be arrested,” he said speaking on grounds of anonymity. Police officers are not allowed to speak to the media with only the official spokesman granted permission.
Last Tuesday Kandaiah Gowri, (29) a native of Chavakachcheri, Jaffna committed suicide - the first LTTE cadre to do so after the defeat of the LTTE.
She had been attached to FOOSTO, an NGO supporting dairy development in Vavuniya and also collecting milk from dairy farmers in the area.
On information provided by a female suspect identified as Kanaga Janani already in custody, a team of policemen from the Special Operations Unit in Galle took her to Vavuniya on Tuesday. From there they travelled to Kumankulam, five kilometres north-west of Vavuniya town and carried out a search for the LTTE suspect.
The woman had come to Vavuniya in 2006 and rented a house in the Kumankulam area and then found a job in an INGO in Vavuniya. As it was an isolated village no suspicion about her leaked out. Most of the residents were those displaced by the 1983 violence and resettled in the area.
When the police raided the place Gowri had swallowed a cyanide capsule. She was rushed to the Vavuniya hospital, but was pronounced dead on admission.
On information provided by the suspect Janani, the police team was able to recover three suicide jackets, 100 9mm rounds of ammunition, six kilos of C4 explosives and four cyanide capsules.
Two other females and a male are now in police custody. “We have searched several places for other suspects but those persons have gone missing. Further investigations are underway”, the police officer said without elaborating. |
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