Prabhakaran's wife, daughter dead?

The slain LTTE chief Vellupillai Prabhakaran's wife and daughter as well as his top commander Pottu Amman have died in the Sri Lankan conflict, the Tigers' international spokesman S Pathmanathan has told the rebel supremo's former ally Karuna Amman.

Colonel Karuna, the LTTE commander of the Eastern region before he fell out with Prabhakaran in 2004, said that LTTE's International Relations head Pathmanathan has claimed that the wife and daughter of Prabhakaran were dead.

"But I cannot confirm this personally... If they were in the no-fire zone, they could not have escaped," Karuna, now a federal minister, said.

The slain Tiger supremo's wife Mathivathani and daughter Duwarka were earlier believed to have fled to Europe as the conflict intensified in Sri Lanka's north.

Sri Lankan army has not yet found their bodies or revealed any information about them. The whereabouts of Prabhakaran's 13-year-old son Balachandran are also not known.

Asked what he felt on the death of Prabhakaran, Karuna said he thought about the nearly one lakh people who had died and huge amounts of property that was wasted because of Prabhakaran and the military conflict run by him for years.

"I only thought this man was not accepting a political solution," Karuna told visiting newsmen.