‘Prabhakaran still alive’: Who is P Nedumaran, and how the LTTE chief was killed

On Monday, the 89-year-old Nedumaran held a press conference at Thanjavur, where he said, “I want to say that Prabhakaran is still alive and doing well. I’m happy to tell the Tamil diaspora about that. All the rumours and questions about him might be thus answered. He will announce his next plan (to liberate) Tamil Eelam very soon, himself.” Nedumaran also urged Tamils around the world to “come out to welcome” Prabhakaran.

The Tamil leader also said that the LTTE had not allowed “any anti-Indian” forces to use Sri Lanka’s land.

“When the LTTE was still around, they never let any anti-Indian forces use Sri Lankan land. But we can see that China’s influence in Sri Lanka has grown and that China now controls Sri Lanka… They are also getting more power over the Indian Ocean. I ask the Indian government to do what needs to be done to stop this geopolitical situation,” he said.

Who is P Nedumaran?

Pazha Nedumaran is a writer, activist, editor-in-chief of the Tamil by-weekly Then Seidi, and a former member of the Congress party. He was close to former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Kamaraj, quitting the party after the latter’s death.

He was instrumental in securing the release of Kannada superstar Rajkumar from the bandit Veerappan in 2000.

Nedumaran shared good terms with Prabhakaran, and had even travelled to Sri Lanka during the war to meet the LTTE leader. In 1992, he was booked for sedition for a ‘pro-LTTE’ speech. Though a chargesheet was filed in 1994, the case didn’t come up for trial. However, in 2002, he made another speech on Prabhakaran, and was charged under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. This time, the sedition charge of 1992 was added, and he spent 15 months in jail before being acquitted by the Additional Sessions Court in 2003.

During the war in Sri Lanka, Nedumaran, as head of a committee of Tamil sympathisers and international human rights activists, held talks with the Indian authorities to push for a ceasefire.

He has made claims of Prabhakaran being alive earlier too. In 2018, he had told The Indian Express, “I have reliable information that Prabhakaran is still alive, he was never captured… he fled.”

Nedumaran’s son Palani Kumanan, an engineer, works with The Wall Street Journal. In 2015, he was part of the WSJ team that won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism.

How did Prabhakaran die?

On May 18, 2009, Sri Lanka announced it had killed Prabhakaran. In the months before, the Sri Lankan army had launched an all-out offensive against the Tigers, slowly pushing them deeper inside strongholds in northern Sri Lanka. Prabhakaran’s hideout in the Mullaithivu region had been encircled by the military. According to Sri Lanka’s officials, he was killed as he tried to escape with a band of followers in an armour-plated van, with more rebel commanders accompanying them in a bus. After a two-hour exchange of fire, the Sri Lankan troops fired a rocket that hit the van, killing the rebel leader.

The LTTE officially confirmed Prabhakaran’s death about a week after this. On May 24, 2009, LTTE’s international relations head Selvarasa Pathmanathan told BBC in an interview that their “incomparable leader attained martyrdom”.

Then Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa also made a phone call to then Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to confirm the death of Prabhakaran.