Rajiv assassination mastermind, suicide bomber, too, missing from ‘Heroes’ list

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Mahendraraja Gopalswamy alias Mahattaya, the deputy of the defeated LTTE, has been left out of its ‘Heroes’ list displayed in Nallur, Jaffna, during the recent Mahaveer Naal celebrations.

Sources based in Jaffna said that Mahattaya, who had been executed on Dec 28, 1994, on orders of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, wasn’t included in the list. Mahattaya was put to death after LTTE found him guilty of serving India’s premier intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)

Sources said that the list that consisted of 24,379 names must have been subjected to the approval of the LTTE rump, and hence the decision to leave out the one-time deputy of the group.

Mahattaya is believed to have been executed after being detained for about 16 months. He was about 38 years of age at the time of his execution by the LTTE.

Responding to The Island queries, sources said that the LTTE was believed to have initiated investigations after he was left out of a charge sheet in former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. The LTTE assassinated Gandhi during the parliamentary polls campaign at Sriperumbudur, in South India, on May 21, 1991, less than year after India pulled its Army from Sri Lanka’s northern and eastern provinces.

Among those who had been left out of the ‘Heroes’ list were the suicide killer of Gandhi Puwaneshwari Rajaratnam and two other LTTE operatives who took cyanide when Indian security forces, following a three-month long manhunt, surrounded their hideout in Banglaore, in Karanataka State, on August 20, 1991. Sources identified one of them as one-eyed Sivarasan, who

masterminded the assassination of Gandhi. Military Intelligence sources told The Island that Uduppidy, Jaffna born Pakyachandran Chandrasekarampillai was one-eyed LTTE operative’s real name. Like thousands of others, Chandrasekarampillai had received military training in India in the early 80s as a member of another Tamil group TELO (Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization) before switching his allegiance to Prabhakaran.

Sources said that there could be many other cadres left out of the list as Prabhakaran executed quite a number of his men on suspicion they served Indian and Sri Lankan intelligence services.