TN police track LTTE to Kerala

Seize a boat being built for the Sea Tigers off Kochi

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Tamil Nadu (TN) police seized a mechanised boat being built for the LTTE in a fishing boat off Kochi on Wednesday. Acting on a tip-off from the two LTTE operatives arrested in Thiruchirappally on Monday, they took into custody four persons from Kozhikode and Kochi.

The 72-foot mechanised steel boat was seized after a joint team of the Tamil Nadu and Kerala police raided the Sudha marine engineering workshop in Munambam.

The Q Branch sleuths came to Kerala after they netted two Sri Lankan nationals, suspected to be LTTE associates, from Thiruchirappally early this week. One of the arrested – V Premraj – was supposed to procure the boat for the Sea Tigers, the marine wing of the LTTE. He is supposed to have commissioned the boat through Ismail, an agent in Kozhikode, the police said. Ismail, Murali and Koya, who issued the boat-building contract, and Joseph Benny, the boatyard owner, are being interrogated.

Vice-Admiral Sunil Damle, who heads the Southern Naval Command in Kochi, had said last November that the LTTE had spread its smuggling network to Kerala coast.

s_don@dnaindia.net