Velupillai, a man of peace, dies in the Army cantonement in Sri Lanka

Thiruvekkadam Velupillai(86), father of slain LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran, who died on Tuesday night in military cantonement in Panagoda on the outskirts of Colombo after a brief illness, was a loyal government servant and a man of peace though with a political conviction of his own, very much unlike his son who led an armed struggle for over 25 years for an independent Eelam for the Sri Lankan Tamils, leading to the loss of over 80,000 lives.

Velupillai died after a brief illness, the army said without giving further details. The government maintained that in the last seven months since Prabhakaran and his fellow fighters were killed in action, Velupillai and his wife were looked after well, but did not say why they were kept in detention, even if it was protective custody.

Army spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said Velupillai had been in poor health for some time.

Prabhakaran’s father served in the Sri Lankan government for 39 years, beginning his career as a clerk at the Ceylon Government Railways in 1943. He received several promotions, retiring as Land Officer of the Land Settlement Department in 1982.

Velupillai and his wife Parvathi lived in Tiruchi in India through much of the violent campaign led by his son after the outbreak of full-scale civil war in 1983. They stayed on in Tiruchi with their daughter after Prabhakaran returned to Jaffna in January 1987 to distance himself from Indian pressure ahead of the peace accord the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi signed with Sri Lankan President J R Jayewardene.

Even after Prabhakaran took on the Indian army in protest against what he perceived was an unjust accord imposed on the Tamil people, his parents continued to live in Tiruchi and they were left alone. No harm came to them when Prabhakaran's killer squad assassinated Rajiv Gandhi, that too in Tamil Nadu.

According to reports, after his daughter migrated to Canada, Velupillai alongwith his wife moved into the house of a family doctor who had been attending on them for years. They returned to Vanni only after the outbreak of Eelam War IV in 2006.

The two were spotted in Menik Farm in Vavuniya where hundreds of thousands of Tamils from the war zone took refuge after all the LTTE leaders, including Prabhakaran and his family, were annihilated in May last year. The army took them into custody and reportedly kept them in a camp in Panagoda, according to Tamilnet.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in a message conveyed its condolences to Mrs. Velupillai, children and relatives. "The entire Tamil Nation laments the demise of Mr. Velupillai who preferred to be with the people during the war", the statement said.

"Mr. Velupillai was kept in isolation and illegal custody by the Sri Lankan army and was denied proper medical care at his old age", the LTTE alleged.

Though Mr Velupillai died a natural death, his detention along with his wife after the war has exposed the Sri Lankan Government to needless criticism from the international community, particularly those concerned about human rights.

Pro-LTTE leaders in Tamil Nadu like Vaiko and Nedumaran, who are yet to come to terms with the death of Prabhakaran, will now have one more stick to beat the Sri Lankan government with. In fact, pro-LTTE leader and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi chief Thol Tirumavalavan, who is in the DMK camp and who attended the funeral of Upcountry Tamil Front leader Chandrasekharan's funeral last week, is reported to have pleaded with the Srei Lankan authorities for the release of Prabhakaran's parents.

In a condolence message, Tirumavalavan said that he took up with the Sri Lankan authorities the release of not only Prabhakaran's parents but also his equally aged mother-in-law, but the Government did not heed his request.

He said he took up the matter with President's brother Basil Rajapaksa when he went to Sri Lanka as part of a DMK-led MPs' team that visited the camps of the displaced Tamils, and again when he went to attend the funeral of Mr Chandrasekharan.

He said Mr Basil wanted the request to come from Prabhakaran's family. Efforts were under way to get such a request from Prabhakaran's eldest sister in Canada. But before the efforts could fructity, Mr Velupillai passed way. "By being with the Tamil people during their most critical hour and by fostering the liberation spirit in his son Prabhakaran, Mr Velupillai died a martyr to the cause", he said.

His death comes at a time when the Karunanidhi Government, through the Governor's address to the State Assembly on Tuesday, made a departure from the Government of India's stand on Lanka and called for a settlement of the ethnic question that would satisfy the Tamils. India has all along maintained that any solution should ensure equal rights for Tamils and meet the aspirations of all communities, including Tamils.

- Asian Tribune -