| On 2nd March 1991,
the Sri Lankan Defense Minister Ranjan Wijeratne was killed when a massive car bomb blew
apart his armour plated Mercedes Benz. The government and the army quickly blamed the LTTE for this murder. The LTTE office in London denied any involvement, but said his "death would be greeted with a sense of relief by the Tamil people." A number of Tamil youth were rounded up and arrested from lodging houses and motels in Colombo following this car bomb explosion. None were tried in the courts, but some of those arrested later disappeared. It was shown later that the real reason no one was tried for this murder is that the assassin was a Chinese Casino owner who was expelled by the Minister 10 days earlier. There had been a tussle between this Minister and the chinese underworld figure for control of the casinos in Colombo. |
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