COLOMBO, 11 November 2006 — A pro-Tamil Tiger MP was gunned down in the Sri Lankan capital yesterday as the island’s warring parties fought fresh sea battles and faced rising international condemnation over civilian deaths.
Police said unidentified attackers killed Nadarajah Raviraj, 44, and his bodyguard as they drove to work. Just minutes earlier, Raviraj had appeared on television accusing government troops of massacring Tamil civilians.
President Mahinda Rajapakse said the slain politician was a personal friend and expressed shock at the news of his assassination, his spokesman Chandrapala Liyanage said.
“The president ordered the inspector-general to make sure that they get to the bottom of this political assassination,” Liyanage said. “He was shocked and saddened to hear about it.” He said the president had also asked the Foreign Ministry to request Britain’s help with the investigation.
Raviraj is the second legislator from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to be killed in the past year. MP Joseph Pararajasingham was shot dead while he attended Christmas Day mass at a Roman Catholic church in the eastern town of Batticaloa.
Raviraj had criticized the security forces for killing at least 65 civilians on Wednesday when they shelled rebel-held sections of Batticaloa and hit a public building where hundreds of displaced persons were sheltering.
Raviraj’s party blamed the government for the killing. “We understand that a whole magazine has been emptied on them in broad daylight,” TNA lawmaker Suresh Premachandran said. “This is a clear message to Tamil parliamentarians ... ‘Don’t open your mouth.’”
Raviraj, who also worked as a lawyer and was going to court when he was attacked, died after being admitted to the National Hospital, said hospital director Anil Jasinghe.
The United States said it deplored the assassination and said the island had been “unjustly robbed of his energy and talent.”
“It is critical that crimes such as the murder of Nadarajah Raviraj not go unpunished,” the US Embassy said in a statement. “We urge the government to begin an immediate investigation into the circumstances of his killing and to find, arrest, and prosecute those responsible on the most urgent basis.”
The TNA, a coalition of moderate Tamil parties, also demanded an internationally supervised probe.
Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe accused the government of not making any breakthrough in the previous assassination of a legislator and demanded an “independent inquiry” to arrest the suspects.
The Tamil Tigers said Raviraj had visited Jaffna recently and issued reports about the situation, condemning Sri Lankan military interference into civil affairs, especially in the distribution of essential items.
Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry said six guerrillas were killed yesterday when the military blasted two rebel boats in a fresh clash in the northeastern district of Trincomalee. The confrontation came barely 12 hours after two separate sea battles between the navy and the Tamil Tigers off the island’s northern Jaffna Peninsula, where the guerrillas sank two government gunboats.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said they had killed about 25 in the two battles.
The surge in violence came as the United Nations and the US severely criticized Wednesday’s shelling by the Sri Lankan army.
