A plethora of rumours about LTTE chief V Prabhakaran started doing its rounds in Chennai as the countdown for Wednesday’s Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu began.Though the rumour mills started whirring a few days back, the last couple of days saw anxious people enquiring if the LTTE chief had been killed in the war.
Some of them even wondered if the Sri Lankan government would make it known to the world only after the elections in Tamil Nadu.
Their theory was that the Indian government could have urged Lanka not to make any crucial announcements on the war before the last phase of polling, LEST it could swing voters in Tamil Nadu more against the Congress.Another rumour was that Prabakaran had fled Sri Lanka and is now in some European country, along with a few close associates.
The third rumour, which sounded more credible than the other two, was that the LTTE leader was not in the war zone, where the Sri Lankan army is inching forward to flush out the militants completely.People familiar with the LTTE’s style of functioning rubbished the first two rumours.
They said that even if the Sri Lankan government listens to the Indian government, the LTTE will not keep quiet if something like that happened.The militants would only take advantage of a tragedy to gain sympathy from the people of Tamil Nadu on the eve of elections.
Besides, the LTTE has a track record of publicising the deaths of other LTTE leaders, the source pointed out and added: “Do not believe such rumours, spread by the Sri Lankan Government.”
Those who know about the organisation laughed at that prospect of Prabhakaran being in a foreign country.They said that if he had to flee, he could have done that long ago. In fact, he was fighting with the Tamil people and would not look for a cosy getaway at a moment of crisis, they said.
However, the third rumour, that of his slipping out of the war zone could be true, the sources said. Purely from a strategic point of view, top LTTE commanders could have moved out to some safer zone in other Tamil settlements in a bid to continue the war with the Sri Lankan army, they said.
expressbuzz
