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Blast kills 3 in Colombo
The blast is believed to be part of a low intensity war going on between LTTE and Govt, reports PK Balachandran.
Three people including a three-year-old child were killed, and eight others including a former Tamil member of parliament were seriously injured in a van bomb blast in front of a popular girls' school in the centre of Colombo on Tuesday.
Among the injured was Sivadasan, a former Tamil MP belonging to the pro-government Eelam Peoples' Democratic Party (EPDP) headed by cabinet minister Douglas Devananda.
A Sri Lankan Army spokesman said that the blast occurred right in front of St Paul's school on the busy Dickman's Road at about 2.30 pm.
The army squarely blamed the LTTE for the blast and said that the Tamil terror group had targeted Sivadasan but failed to get him.
A plastic magnetic device with powerful explosives had been planted in a van, the army said.
There was a loud explosion and billowing smoke, which could be heard and seen for miles around.
The van itself was ablaze for quite sometime. Burning along with it was a car, right behind it.
The mother of the dead child was among the seriously injured. They were crossing the road when the blast occurred.
The injured were rushed to the Colombo National Hospital, which has considerable experience in treating blast victims.
Timing averted mass slaughter of kids
The timing of the blast averted a mass slaughter of school children.
Fortunately, most of the kids of St Paul's school had left the place before the blast, the army said.
Sri Lankan schools start early and wind up by about 2 pm.
Dickman's Road is a very busy thoroughfare linking two arterial roads, Havelock Road in the East and Galle Road in the West.
Traffic jams are common at this time of the afternoon, increasing the possibility of heavy casualties and damage to vehicles.
LTTE plan to eliminate EPDP leaders
The LTTE has been targeting the close associates of the EPDP leader Douglas Devananda for some time now.
Earlier, they had tried to kill Devananda himself, with a female suicide bomber, in the heart of Colombo behind the Prime Minister's residence "Temple Trees" on Galle Road.
The trilingual Sivadasan is a respected Tamil leader, with a leftist past, who has been a key member of the EPDP for many years.
The first of Devananda's associates to be killed in recent times, was Balanataraja Iyer alias Sinna Bala, the party ideologue.
And very recently, the leader's PRO, Maha Kananapathi Pillai, was shot dead.
Both the assassinations were carried out in residential localities in South Colombo in broad daylight.
Part of on going low intensity war
Tuesday's blast is part of the current low intensity war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government.
On Tuesday, one Air Force person was killed in a claymore mine blast in Morawewa in Trincomalee district.
On Monday, a Senior Superintendent of the Special Task Force (STF), and the unit's chief trainer, Upul Seneviratne, was killed in a claymore mine blast in Digana in Kandy district in Central Sri Lanka.
Earlier, in the Eastern Muslim town of Mutur, 15 Sri Lankan staff of a French aid agency, were killed in "execution style" triggering an international outrage.
It is not clear which group killed them, whether it was the LTTE, the Sri Lankan forces or the Tamil paramilitary groups working with the army.
In the recent upsurge of violence, which saw ground, naval and air action, complete with the deployment of artillery, Multi-Barrel Rocker Launchers, and supersonic aircraft, at least 100 people were killed, and about 40,000 were displaced in the Eastern district of Trincomalee.
The Sri Lankan Air Force had bombed LTTE's installations in Batticaloa, Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts as part of a plan to break the backbone of the Tamil militant group and neutralise its fledgling air force.
The LTTE had invaded Mutur and its environs, thus widening the area of the conflict.
Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalas have all suffered in the conflict, which was over the waters of the river Mavil Aaru.
The LTTE had precipitated it by closing the gates of the dam over the river on July 20.
It had made an attempt on the life of the Sri Lankan Army chief Lt Gen Sarath Fonseka on April 25. Subsequently, the third in the chain of command, Maj Gen Parami Kulatunga, was killed.
In the past one-year of the low intensity conflict, more than 800 civilians and combatants have been killed, making a mockery of the 2002 ceasefire agreement.