PLOTE - TELO CLASHES (99 May 19)
Four PLOTE members have been killed in Vavuniyava in the night of Saturday the 15th by TELO members following the killing of two TELO members a businessman near the Majestic city shopping complex in Bambalapitiya at about 5.30 p.m. on the same day by members of the PLOTE. The police believe that the murders in Vavuniyava were in retaliation to the killings in Bambalapitiya.
The president of the TELO and MP for the Wanniya district Mr. A. Adayakalanathan has told "The Island" that the attacks by the PLOTE are due to jealousy because of the progress that the TELO has made. The PLOTE cadres who were killed in the Bambalapitiya shooting have been identified as Messrs. Kugan and Das. The businessman Mr. Jayakodi, the third person who was killed, has visited the shopping complex with the PLOTE members. Fortunately none of the people who had come on shopping has been injured as a result of the shooting.
These incidents only illustrate that these organisations are now very much frustrated and also that they have no regard for the public. Few people could have died in Bambalapitiya as a result of the shooting but they were not concerned at all of the lives of the innocent people. It also makes a mockery of the so-called democratic process these parties supposed to have entered as they go about killing each other. The government should take steps to unarm the members of these organisations.