Explosion injures 3 PLOTE cadres

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 December 1998, 12:12 GMT]
Three members of the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) were wounded in an explosion which took place in one of their camps at Kovilkulam in Vavuniya this morning, the police said.

According to the police, the explosion took place when the PLOTE cadres were testing an explosive, probably a shell or a claymore mine. The injured were rushed to Vavuniya hospital.

Hospital sources said that all three victims were wounded in their legs below the knee, one critically.

Meanwhile PLOTE members who went to the hospital were tense and in an angry mood and one of them had assaulted a civilian standing in front of the hospital for no reason, the hospital sources added.

Meanwhile the PLOTE is reported to have formed a special military unit to assist the Sri Lankan Government forces in the on going offensive against the Liberation Tigers in the Vanni region.

About 150 PLOTE cadres have undergone a short period of training and were ready for a joint operation with the SLA, said sources who do not wish to be identified.

The PLOTE leaders, according to the sources, have requested their senior members, who had left the movement and are living on their own with families, to join the movement immediately.

Some of them who were reluctant to join the movement again have been conscripted the sources added.