Police say recovered clues

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 March 2000, 22:49 GMT]
Sri Lankan Police sources said this evening that they recovered some clues, including national identity cards of the gunmen suspected to be members of the Liberation Tigers committed suicide following a heavy fire-fight in which four soldiers were wounded.

Residents at the Serpentine Flats told the state TV station (ITN) this morning that the gunmen who had taken position on the top floor of their building had not targeted them during the fire-fight with the Sri Lankan army troops.

Contrary to official reports last night about residents being evacuated from the apartment building by the SLA that had cordoned off the area following confirmation that the attackers were inside, most of the people had remained in their flats until the fire-fight was over this morning when the gunmen had climbed on to the water tank on the roof of the building and blew themselves up.

The attackers had not attempted to take hostages from the densely populated apartment building residents said.

Police sources in Colombo were of the view that they had been spared of a major crisis because the attackers had not taken hostage any family in the apartment building to demand safe passage as in similar situations elsewhere in the world.

One resident told an interviewer that the fire fight between the army and the Tigers at the flats showed what the war could really look like in the north.

A boy in the apartment was wounded by a stray bullet during the fire fight this morning.