Assassination of Jaffna mayor Alfred Duriappah. Four youths, including Velupillai Prabhakaran, claim responsibility.
Source
Jain Commission Report, August 1997, published in India Today.
Extracts from the Jain Commission Report, August 1997
“The LTTE was founded on May 5th 1976 as a successor to Tamil New Tigers (TNT). The TNT was started by V. Pirabhakaran on 22nd May, 1972, soon after the promulgation of the Republican Constitution. …
“The first major strike of the TNT was the assassination of the Mayor of Jaffna. On July 27, 1975 Alfred Duriappah, the Tamil Mayor of Jaffna and chief organiser of the SLFP in the region, went to the Varadaraja Perumal temple at Ponnalai in Jaffna. Four young men waiting for him at the temple attacked him as soon as he got out of his car. One of them opened fire from point blank range. The mayor tried to escape but collapsed in a pool of blood. The assailants jumped into Duriappah’s car and sped away. …
“On April 25, 1978 the LTTE came out into the open for the first time accepting responsibility for the murders of Mayor Duriappah, an alleged Police agent called N.Nadaraja and 9 policemen including Bastian Pillai. The claim was made in a LTTE letter head marked “to whom it may concern” inscribed in the now famous insignia of the roaring Tiger. This claim was published in the Tamil daily Veerkesari, and with this, the LTTE’s existence came to be known publicly.”
Extracts from ‘Antecedents of July 1983 and the Foundations of Impunity’, The Murder of Alfred Duraiappah, University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR)
“Alfred Duraiappah who was Jaffna’s independent MP from 1960-65 and several times mayor was a popular figure. Although this is denied by many Tamil nationalists, the fact is that in all elections for the Jaffna seat, the votes were equally split between him, the Tamil Congress and the Federal Party. His appeal had nothing to do with his representing any great ideal or principle in politics. He knew his constituents individually and tried to make everyone feel that he was part of their family. He greeted people on the road and inquired about their studies and personal matters. He catered to the needs of people for the normal business of life to go on. He dealt in jobs, transfers, market buildings, public lavatories and streetlights. It suited him to have government patronage for his style of politics, and so he aligned himself with the SLFP. …
“From 1972, the TUF (FP) launched vicious attacks on Duraiappah calling him a traitor worthy of death. At the beginning, it may have been a stunt to win the Jaffna seat. But the more they articulated it, the more they began to believe it to be only right and natural that his end should come. An important event in the vilification of Duraiappah was the International Tamil Research Conference of January 1974. …
“There was not a shred of evidence that Alfred Duraiappah was in any way the cause of this tragedy. But the fact that he was with the Government made the city father a ready scapegoat. The SLFP office on the Main Street was that same night attacked by a mob led by a man identified as a TUF supporter. …
“Very quickly an effective propaganda campaign was unloosed accusing Duraiappah of responsibility for the tragedy and the deaths of the civilians. This was again a case of ‘corpse politics’. It was later carried to new heights by Prabhakaran, the LTTE supremo. …
“On 27th July 1975, Duraiappah was shot dead when he arrived by car at the Ponnalai Varadaraja Perumal Temple with two companions, as was his custom on Friday evenings. Prabhakaran was among the group of assassins who formed the incipient Tiger Movement.”
Related events
August 1977
5 May 1976
22 May 1978
23 July 1983
