Prabhakaran’s father to be cremated Sunday

NEW DELHI - The father of slain Tamil Tigers leader Velupillai Prabhakaran will be cremated at his hometown in northern Sri Lanka Sunday, a Tamil politician said Saturday.

M.K. Shivaji Lingam, one of the candidates for the Jan 26 presidential elections, said Thiruvendran Velupillai’s body would be taken to the small coastal village of Velvettiturai for the final rites.

Velupillai, 82, and his wife had been in military custody since they surrendered to the government after their rebel-son was killed in May in a battle with the army in the country’s north.

Shivajilingam told IANS over telephone from Vavuniya, 254 km north of Colombo, that Velupillai, a former civil servant, died of natural cases on Wednesday night.

He said the military had said that Velupillai, who apparently suffered from heart problems and was a diabetic, died of natural causes. An autopsy was performed.

According to army spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, the father had been ailing for some time. He said that Prabhakaran’s parents were living in a military base on the outskirts of Colombo in “protective custody”.

Shivajilingam, who also hails from Velvettiturai, said a family member of the slain LTTE chief living in Canada had authorized him to take charge of the body from Sri Lankan authorities.

Prabhakaran headed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which was decimated by the Sri Lankan military in May.