LTTE’s Thamilini in custody !!!

The LTTE’s women’s political wing head Subramaniam Shivathai, alias Thamilini, was taken into custody yesterday, by a special police team, at the IDP camp in Vavuniya, while she was in the camp with her mother and sister, a senior police officer said.

Thamilini had come to the government controlled area with the people escaping from Puthumathalan which was a No Fire Zone at the time. She had told the police that she threw away her cyanide capsule and her pistol and passed off as a displaced person.

Thamilini’s mother, Subramaniam Gowri Wijayaraja and a sister Maheshwari had also come with her.

Another sister, Santhilan, had been killed in 1998, during a clash with the security forces in Paranthan.

Thamilini and her family members had not been recognised by anyone when they lived with the others before they were sent to the camp in Vavuniya.

Thamilini had been a student at Paranthan Hindu College up to the ‘O’ Level and had studied for the ‘A’ Level at the Central College of Kilinochchi. she had joined the LTTE in 1991, after listening to a lecture by the LTTE, and received battle training in a camp in Nirveli. For some time she had been put in charge of a coir mill and a farm in the Kilali area. During interrogations she had disclosed that she was attached to Thamilchelvam’s office.

When Nesmia, the previous head of LTTE Women’s Wing,- was killed in a clash with the army in Muhamalai, Thamilini had been appointed in her place. Her LTTE registration number was 1736.Thamilini was the name given her by the LTTE.

Special police intelligence officers and army investigators are continuing interrogations.