Selvarajah Yogachandran,
( ta, செல்வராஜா யோகசந்திரன்) (died 25 July 1983) also known as Kuttimani was one of the leaders
of the former Tamil militant organization
TELO
The Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO) is an Eelam Tamil organisation which campaigned for the establishment of an independent Tamil Eelam in the northeast of Sri Lanka during 1972-1987 which later accepted the December 19th proposals. T ...
from
Sri Lanka. He was arrested and sentenced to death, and was killed in the 1983
Welikada prison massacre
The Welikada Prison Massacre took place during the 1983 Black July pogrom against Sri Lankan Tamil minority in Colombo
Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the exec ...
along with the other TELO leader
Nadarajah Thangathurai.
Early activism and TELO
Selvarajah Yogachandran along with
Nadarajah Thangathurai inspired several Tamil student radicals to rise against
Sri Lankan state terror and founded the
Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization
The Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO) is an Eelam Tamil organisation which campaigned for the establishment of an independent Tamil Eelam in the northeast of Sri Lanka during 1972-1987 which later accepted the December 19th proposals. ...
in the late 1960s. The group formally constituted itself into an organisation in 1979, inspired in part by the LTTE and the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS). Soon, it had become the most effective of the Tamil militant groups except the LTTE.
Kuttimani was a firm believer that only a free, independent country for the island's Tamils in their traditional homeland will protect their legitimate rights.
Kuttimani, Nadarajah and many others would later be arrested in 1981, in a brutal and intensive government crackdown of most of the Tamil liberation groups and activists.
Nomination to the parliament
Before his death, Kuttimani was officially nominated to the
Vaddukoddai
Vaddukoddai (also spelt Vattukkottai, Vatukotai, Vattukotai) ( ta, வட்டுக்கோட்டை, si, වඩුකෝඩයි) is small but important town in the minority Sri Lankan Tamil dominated Jaffna peninsula of Sri Lanka. I ...
constituency in 15 October 1982, when the then sitting member of
TULF party, T.Thirunavukkarau died on 1 August 1982. However the legal sources, then under the control of President
J. R. Jayewardene
Junius Richard Jayewardene ( si, ජුනියස් රිචඩ් ජයවර්ධන, ta, ஜூனியஸ் ரிச்சட் ஜயவர்தனா; 17 September 1906 – 1 November 1996), commonly abbreviated in Sri Lanka as ...
, ruled that Kuttimani's nomination as a member of parliament was invalid.
The then Prisons Commissioner Priya Delgoda announced on 16 October 1982 that Kuttimani would not be released from prison to take his oaths at the parliament. Kuttimani's appointment was gazetted while he was under a sentence of death. In a statement issued to explain the reasons for nominating Kuttimani to the vacant parliamentary seat, the TULF officials included five. Among these are two prominent reasons: (1) Kuttimani's nomination is a token protest against the state terrorism perpetrated from time to time through the agencies of the police and military personnel especially on the young Tamils of the country. (2) It is a protest against the death penalty imposed on Kuttimani and Jegan. Subsequently, on 4 February 1983, Kuttimani's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment under the general amnesty proclaimed by President Jayewardene. After this, Kuttimani resigned his Vaddukoddai seat in the parliament, to which he was nominated.
Imprisonment, death and martyrdom
Death sentence
Kuttimani was arrested by the
Sri Lankan Navy
ta, இலங்கை கடற்படை
, image = Sri Lanka Naval Seal.png
, image_size = 180px
, caption = Emblem of Sri Lanka Navy
, dates =
, c ...
on 5 April 1981 and was charged with an array of "criminal acts". The Sri Lankan court sentenced him to death.
The presiding judge said that when he sat down he would pronounce his verdict as required by law. However, before that, he wanted to state that he did not view Kuttimani as a common criminal. He further said that if one day the president was to grant a reprieve to Kuttimani he would be happy to hear of it. Kuttimani's reply showed the world his
yearning for a free country (
Tamil Eelam
Tamil Eelam ( ta, தமிழீழம், ''tamiḻ īḻam''; generally rendered outside Tamil-speaking areas as தமிழ் ஈழம்) is a proposed independent state that many Tamils in Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora ...
) for his people. This was his reply:
Upon his death sentence, Kuttimani was sent to the
Welikada (Welikade) maximum-security prison to wait for his execution. There were both Sinhala and Tamil prisoners. The Sinhala prisoners were convicted of criminal offences such as murder, rape, robbery, etc. The Tamil prisoners were all militants. The Sinhala and Tamil prisoners were kept apart all the time to avoid racial clashes between them.
Murder
Kuttimani was brutally murdered during the
1983 Anti-Tamil pogrom in the island.
Sinhalese mobs as well as personnel belonging to the Sri Lankan forces went on a rampage in Tamil areas, torturing and murdering Tamil men and children, raping, torturing and murdering Tamil women and girls, and looting and burning Tamil residences and businesses. Police and army (which were almost exclusively Sinhalese) either participated in this orgy of violence against the Tamils or kept a blind eye.
On 25 July, the second day of the pogrom, the Tamil inmates of the Welikada prison, who almost all of them had been detained without any trial, were brutally murdered by the Sinhalese convicts with the assistance of the prison guards. According to Amnesty International, some of the Sinhala prisoners were given alcohol and then were encouraged to attack the Tamil prisoners. A large number of the Sinhala prisoners, with knives and other sharp weapons, stormed into the building where some 35-37 Tamil prisoners were lodged. They stabbed, beat and tortured the Tamil prisoners. Genitals of a few prisoners were mutilated.
Both the eyes of Kuttimani as well as
Jeganathan were mutilated and gouged out with iron bars, since he had dreamed of seeing with them, through another person after his execution, an independent Tamil state. One version has it that Kutimani's tongue was cut out by an attacker who drank the blood and cried: "I have drunk the blood of a Tiger."
He was then murdered and his body was disposed in front of a statue of the
Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...
in the prison yard.
See also
*
Nadarajah Thangathurai
*
Velupillai Prabhakaran
Velupillai Prabhakaran (; ta, வேலுப்பிள்ளை பிரபாகரன்; , (26 November 1954 – 18 May 2009) was a Sri Lankan Tamil guerrilla and the founder and leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ...
*
Sivakumaran
*
Jeganathan
*
Rajasundaram
*
S. J. V. Chelvanayakam
*
Black July
Black July ( ta, கறுப்பு யூலை, translit=Kaṟuppu Yūlai; si, කළු ජූලිය, Kalu Juliya) was an anti-Tamil pogrom that occurred in Sri Lanka during July 1983. The pogrom was premeditated,T. Sabaratnam, Pirapa ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yogachandran, Selvarajah
Year of birth missing
1983 deaths
Sri Lankan Tamil rebels
Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization militants
Fugitives wanted by Sri Lanka