Paramilitary leader shot dead in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 April 1999, 07:13 GMT]
Unidentified gunmen shot and killed Jalaldeen Anwer, 28, a senior cadre of the TELO paramilitary group in Kattaankudy, a large Muslim town 8 kilometers south of Batticaloa, around 11.25 a.m. this morning. TELO sources in Batticaloa said that Anwer was shot near a shop in the crowded centre of the town by three gunmen.

Anwer Jalaldeen is one of the TELO's most senior members in the east. He is the main co-ordinator of the group's work

with the special Task Force and the SLA. Anwer is married to a Tamil and was elected to the Manmunai Pradheshiya Sabha in Batticaloa in March 1994.

TELO sources said that Anwer was accosted by three youth, suspected to be members of the Liberation Tigers, near radio repair shop in a crowded quarter of the town. Two of them had grappled with him while a third had opened fire.

TELO cadres from the STF base in the nearby Tamil village of Aariampathy had rushed to the scene to recover his body. Police sources in Kattaankudy said that the gunmen had got away before the area could be rounded up and searched.