Slain LTTE supremo V Prabhakaran's parents, living in a Vavuniya refugee camp, will not be able to benefit from the government's decision to reunite elderly people with their relatives and will be kept separately to ensure their "safety", Sri Lankan military said today.
"They have admitted to being Prabhakaran's parents and we will have to separate them (from their relatives) for their safety," Military Spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said of Prabhakaran's parents, 76-year-old Thiruvenkadam and 71-year-old Parvathi Velupillai.
In photographs published in the newspapers here, Prabhakaran's father is shown seated on a plastic chair while his mother is seen relaxing in the newly set-up welfare camp in Vavuniya, where they are living with the relatives of other slain LTTE leaders.
"Prabhakaran's relatives are with the relatives of other LTTE leaders and their condition seems to be much better than the ordinary Tamil IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) who look emaciated and starved," Information Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardene had said recently.
Meanwhile, displaced Tamils in temporary refugee camps have accused Prabhakaran of adopting "double standards" in the final days of fighting before he was killed on May 18.
"He took our older people as human shields and kept his father and mother in safer area for them to reach a camp without difficulty," the Sri Lankan government website quoted a displaced person as saying.
Prabhakaran's parents were found inside an IDP camp by the security forces in good health with no sign of injury. "Hence, that was a clear indication that Prabhakaran had not used his father and mother as human shields," the website quoted the displaced as saying.
According to the 'The Island' newspaper, Prabhakaran's parents were in protective custody of Sri Lankan government.
Quoting "a senior government spokesman", it said that they had surrendered to the army after reaching the army lines several days ago.
The spokesman said they had been among civilians holed up in the No Fire Zone on the Mullaitivu coast before the army launched the final assault, the paper reported.
Prabhakaran's parents were among the early batch of Sri Lankan Tamils to go to India, where they settled in Tiruchi in Tamil Nadu before returning to Wanni in 2003, the report said.
They returned to Wanni in May 2003 after Norway brokered ceasefire between the then Ranil Wickremesinghe government and the LTTE, the paper said.
They had been accompanied by their Canada-based daughter Vinodhini and her husband Rajendran, it said.
The Sri Lankan government has decided to allow the feeble, injured or elderly sick persons among the IDPs to reunite with their families so that they can be taken care of, the state-run 'Daily News' reported quoting senior Presidential sources.
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