COLOMBO, MARCH 19: A young woman was stripped at gunpoint by Sri Lankan security officials guarding a street close to President Chandrika Kumaratunga's residence in central Colombo suspecting her to be an Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suicide bomber, media report said on Sunday.The incident took place on Saturday when the security personnel manning a checkpoint stopped a nervous looking young woman dressed in salwar-kameez, which has been identified in police manuals as the most favoured outfit by the LTTE woman suicide bombers as it provided complete cover for the suicide jackets laden with explosives, The Sunday Times reported.After failing to give satisfactory replies, the woman was direct to the centre of the Sri Janaratna road in order to prevent any damage to the well fortified checkpost.In the meantime, "security reinforcements, who arrived at the scene, forced her to strip at gunpoint as they ducked for cover fearing that she was strapped with an explosive jacket", the reports said.After a detailed questioning on the road, much to their embarrassment, the security personnel found that the woman in question hailed from the majority Sinhalese community and resided at Kurnegala, about 50 km from Colombo.The embarrassed officials quickly bundled her into a jeep to a nearby police station, where they established her identity, the newspaper said.Defence and police officials were not immediately available for comments. Even as the woman was being identified in the street, a red alert has been sounded alarming the army and the airforce units in the city to prepare for a major LTTE attack in the city, it said.
