MGR had supplied LTTE with money, claims ex-Tiger

Former prominent Liberation Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) leader Kumaran Pathmanathan, who was the chief international financier and helped smuggle weapons for the terror outfit, spoke to WION in an exclusive interview. KP, as he was known, took over leadership of the LTTE following the death of Velupillai Prabhakaran and was wanted in India in connection with Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination.

Ironically, as KP revealed, it was Rajiv Gandhi’s mother Indira Gandhi who asked RAW to aid LTTE. In his heydays, KP was a reclusive, overseas financier for the LTTE based in Thailand and avoided capture by constantly changing addresses and aliases. He would later repent and become an orphanage father.

He also revealed that former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Marudur Gopalan Ramachandran, popularly known as MGR, supplied the terror outfit with money.

KP was the subject of a worldwide manhunt, with organisations including the CIA and MI-5 on his tail.  

He is believed to possess crucial information about the LTTE’s vast international assets. A former CBI inspector, who took voluntary retirement in 1997, had alleged that the explosives used in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi were sent to Chennai from Singapore by KP.

ROAR SILENCED

• Kumuran Pathmanathan was arrested in Malaysia and was brought to Colombo in 2009 after a global manhunt.
   
• In 2015, KP was barred from leaving Sri Lanka by the Sri Lankan Court of Appeal.