Prabhakaran won't be able to leave Sri Lanka: Karuna

Voicing confidence that Velupillai Prabhakaran would not be able to escape from Sri Lanka in view of the strict vigil across the island, a former top commander of the LTTE has said the elusive Tiger chief will be caught soon if he has already come out of the No Fire Zone.

"I am confident that Prabhakaran is still in the No Fire Zone as is widely believed and also stated by the surrendered LTTE militants. But even if he has escaped from there, he could not have gone beyond Sri Lanka and will be caught soon," Karuna Amman, the former second-in-command of the LTTE who fell out with Prabhakaran in 2004, told PTI.

Karuna, now the minister for National Integration and Reconciliation in the Rajapaksa Cabinet, said that he had tried to persuade Prabhakaran several times to look for a political solution to the decades-old ethnic conflict. The LTTE supremo would, however, never fully subscribe to it and preferred an offensive, he said.

According to Karuna, Prabhakaran could have tried to escape to northwestern Mannar, Vavuniya or even Kandy to initiate guerrilla war tactics, but it was not possible for him now.

"There is a world of difference in the conditions that existed during the IPKF (Indian Peace Keeping Force which was in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1990) days when Prabhakaran had the support from some sections of the people in the Wanni and now," he said.