PA candidate shot dead

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 September 2000, 05:59 GMT]
Mr.Cheliyan Perinpanayagam, a Peoples Alliance (PA) candidate contesting the Parliamentary elections in Batticaloa was shot dead by unidentified gunmen around 10.45 a.m. Sunday in Paandiruppu, 38 kilometers south of Batticaloa police sources in Kalmunai said. A local PA organiser who was with Mr.Perinpanayagam was also killed.

Two unidentified youth had entered the house of the PA's elections organiser for Paandiruppu, Mr.S.Manoharampillai, where the two had been engaged in a discussion about party's campaign work and shot both in the head, killing them on the spot, Police sources said. Paandiruppu is a large Tamil village contiguous with the booming Muslim dominated town of Kalmunai in the district of Ampara.

Commandos of the Special Task Force rushed to the scene from Thuraineelavanai camp on receipt of the information around 12 noon and searched the area for the gunmen who had got away by then.

Mr.Cheliyan Perinpanayagam was elected Mayor of Batticaloa Municipal Council when he contested the local government polls in March 1994 as a candidate of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO) an armed auxillary force operating with the Sri Lankan army and the elite Special Task Force in the east.

Mr. Perinpanayagam resigned from the TELO recently and joined the People's Alliance to contest the elections to Sri Lanka's Parliament next month though he had been slated to contest the elections in the Batticaloa electoral district as a candidate of the TELO.