Senior Jaffna journalist shot dead

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 October 2000, 18:21 GMT]
Senior Jaffna journalist, Mylvaganam Nimalrajan, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in the Sri Lanka Army's high security zone in Jaffna town Thursday night around 10 p.m.. His father Sangarapillai Mylvaganam, 65, his mother, Lilly Mylvaganam, 62, and his nephew, Jegathas Prasanna, 11, were seriously wounded by a grenade lobbed by the gunmen.

Mr.Nimalrajan was the Jaffna correspondent for the Tamil daily Virakesari and the popular Sinhala weekly, Ravaya. He was also a regular contributor to the BBC's Tamil and Sinhala services. His colleagues in Jaffna said that they suspected a pro-government group's involvement in the shooting. His house is close to a Sri Lanka Army sentry.

Mr.Nimalrajan wrote articles in the Virakesari, the Ravaya and the Tamil political weekly, Aathavan, criticising and exposing a pro-government Tamil group that had indulged in thuggery and rigging in Jaffna during elections to the Sri Lankan Parliament on 10 October.

Mr.Nimalrajan was doing work in his study when the gunmen fired at him through the window of his room. They had then lobbed a grenade into the living room of his house, seriously wounding his father, mother and nephew.

The army came to the journalist's home and took him to the Jaffna teaching hospital said Nimalrajan's relatives. They said they could not rush him and his parents for medical-care as there is a curfew in the town after 9 p.m.

A doctor at the Jaffna Teching Hospital said that the staff could not save Mr.Nimalrajan's life as he had been shot at very close quarters.

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