Interest in resettlement cost life to Nakuleswaran

வியாழன், 20 நவம்பர், 2014

Interest in resettlement cost life to Nakuleswaran

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 November 2014, 23:50 GMT]
Funeral of assassinated Krishnasamy Nakuleswaran was held on Sunday at his village, Eekam-kudiyiruppu (settlement of sacrifice), at Ve’l’laang-ku’lam in Mannaar. 15 uniformed SL military men were busy taking photographs from different corners at the funeral and 70 of the 200 participants were intelligence operatives on surveillance assignment, residents told TamilNet Sunday. While many people believed that the SL military intelligence had chosen a target to create fear psychosis among the families of Tamil Heroes, the residents of the village were of the opinion that Nakuleswaran’s interest in working for the proper resettlement of his people had cost him his life. Nakuleswaran's assassination was timed to respond to the call made by C.V. Wigneswaran in Tamil Nadu on bringing back Eezham Tamil refugees in Tamil Nadu and resettling them in the North, political observers said.

Wigneswaran in his address in Chennai was cautioning Tamil Nadu politicians against saying anything that would harm the existence of Tamils in the island. But, as the theme of genocide in its details is unlimited and inexhaustible for ‘Sri Lanka’ in harming Tamils in the island, any caution or appeasement would not work with that state, the observers further said.

Meanwhile, talking to TamilNet on the circumstances of the assassination of Nakuleswran, informed sources in Ki’lnochchi said that the village officer (GS) and Divisional Secretary (DS) of Maanthai West were recently exposed by Nakuleswaran for receiving bribes from Sri Lanka's controversial minister of Industries and Trade, Rishard Badurdeen, for illegally transferring the lands that belonged to Tamil families of the Eekam-kudiyiruppu.

On Sunday, an investigation team has taken the village officer for questioning, the sources further said.

Nakuleswaran was also opposed to illegal logging of trees in the village and could have earned enemies who were operated by the military-corporate.

Earlier, a former paramilitary operative who had recently moved into the village from Vavuniyaa, was arrested with a T-56 rifle in his possession. He had come to the spot immediately after the incident on Wednesday. A detection dog brought from Anuradhapura had sniffed towards his house from the site of the killing, the residents said. The paramilitary operative-turned-alcoholic would do anything for money, the villagers said. However, they questioned his ability to posses a brand new T-56 rifle. If he was the culprit, the instruction for the killing should have come from a source that was able to provide him the rifle, they said.

The entire village was still caught at shock on Sunday as Nakuleswaran was a social activist who had contributed in all possible fronts to the resettlement of the people in the occupied village.

Krishnasamy Nakuleswaran (12 May 1974 – 12 November 2014)

Nakuleswaran was working hard to get houses for the people of the village through the Indian housing scheme. He was the secretary of the farmers association. He was also giving leadership to Samurdhi (welfare) beneficiaries numbering around 100 in the entire division, civil sources said.

He was promoting the people to do farming in the plots of lands associated with their resettlement huts.

The village was a prosperous settlement under the LTTE administration as the Tigers had created a large farm in 500 acres of land where teak trees were planted and a farming facility was created with cashew, jack and mango tree farming as well as livestock farming in 1996. The Maaveerar families (Heores families) were able to sustain a livelihood in the remote village till they were uprooted in the genocidal war in 2008 and 2009.

After the SL military occupation, the farm was seized by a Colombo-based corporate. Later, the SL military has taken it over to run the farm without allowing the villagers to work there, the residents said.

Nakuleswaran, born on 12 May 1974, had joined the LTTE in 1990.

As he demonstrated multifaceted skills, all the different departments of the LTTE were trying to recruit him, his friends said. Within four years, he had served in the key departments of the LTTE, they added.

Two of the elder brothers of Nakuleswaran had sacrificed their lives in the struggle as LTTE fighters, the family friends of Nakuleswaran said.

As a family that had sacrificed two of their sons in the war, the parents were seeking Nakuleswaran’s reunification with the family and he was instructed by the LTTE leadership to look after his family. Nakuleswaran returned to his family near Maavadip-pi’l’laiyar temple in Meesaalai of Jaffna district in 1994.

When the entire people of Jaffna left the peninsula in a mass exodus in 1995 and reached Vanni, Nakuleswaran’s family decided to stay permanently in Vanni as they feared resettling in the peninsula, since Tamil youth were being abducted by the occupying military in Jaffna.

The LTTE created the Eekam-kudiyiruppu in 1996 by clearing the jungles at the locality.

Initially, there were only 12 families from the peninsula, but later there were 115 families. All of them were Tamil Heroes (Maaveerar) families. Every family had received 1 acre of land to do farming near the village. Eekam-kudiyiruppu is situated on Ve’l’laang-ku’lam – Mallaavi Road.

Nakuleswaran married Kavitha, who hails from Palaali in Valikaamam North. She was also living in Vanni as her family was also having members in the LTTE. Their marriage took place on 06 June 2002.

Nakuleswaran was working in the Tamil Eelam police as an employed police constable between 2001 and 2007.

He was arrested by the SL military on 29 April 2009 and was incarcerated till 24 December 2012. He was detained at Ne'lukku'lam in Vavuniyaa, Trincomalee and in Batticaloa under the so-called rehabilitation of former LTTE cadres.

Nakuleswaran leaves behind his wife Kavitha and two children, 11-year-old girl Satheesa, who is studying grade 6 and 8-year-old boy Amutha-nampi studying grade 3 at Ve'l'laangku’lam GTMS school where Kavitha, a trained teacher, has been working as an assistant teacher.

Only around 10 Maaveerar families are living at the village now. The remaining Maaveerar families have chosen to resettle at their native places as the entire nation is under SL military occupation. However, people from neighbouring villages have joined the resettling families at Eekam-kudiyiruppu where Nakuleswaran was engaged in giving hope to the resettling Eezham Tamils.