The private secretary to Sri Lanka' s former rebel leader Sivanesaturai Chandrakanthan (Pilayan) who is now the chief minister of the troubled Eastern Province was shot dead on Friday, defense officials said.
Kumarasamy Nadagopan alias Raghu and his driver were shot dead in their car at Athurugiriya, a Colombo suburb at around 11:30 a.m. local time (0600 GMT), police said.
Raghu was the secretary to Pilayan, who is also the deputy leader of the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP) party formed by a breakaway group of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE).
The killings came as two more TMVP activists were shot dead in an attack in the Eastern Province Thursday night.
The TMVP is bitterly opposed by the LTTE and the police blamed the main Tiger group for the killings.
The TMVP holds political power in the Eastern Province with Pilayan being appointed as the chief minister after the election held in May.
The TMVP leader Vinayagamurthi Muralitharan (Karuna) is now a parliamentarian with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse's ruling party.
In a letter to the police early this week, Karuna had called on them to restore law and order in the province in the face of atrocities by the LTTE.
He said as many as 11 of his supporters were killed within a week in the province in escalating violence.
The government announced in July 2007 that the entire Eastern Province had been liberated from the control of the LTTE and then launched a military offensive against the LTTE in the north.
Claiming discrimination at the hands of Sinhalese-dominated governments, the LTTE has been fighting government troops since the mid-1980s to set up an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east, resulting in the killing of more than 70,000 people.
Source: Xinhua
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