LTTE terrorist have ordered the priests in the Madhu church to leave
church premises with immediate effect facilitating Tigers' apparent
move to turn the Madhu Shrine premises into a war camp, according to
Sri Lankan Army sources. Orders had come with the full backing of an
influential terrorist sup****ter in Mannar, in order to ready the
church premises for terrorist activities. Earlier, LTTE had positioned
its heavy mortar and artillery guns at close range to the church in
order to take cover from the civilian refugees at the church, said the
sources. However, as the priests and the refugees started to protest
against the cowardly tactics of LTTE, the terrorists have ordered the
priests to leave the church premises.
Desecrating sacred grounds had become a regular practice of the LTTE
as they had previously attacked holy shrines like Sri Maha Bodhi site
and the Temple of the Tooth outer compound in Kandy
..
Meanwhile, the sources citing the re****ts said that the priests at
Madhu church managed to take the sacred statue of our lady of Madhu
with them despite the strong protests of the LTTE terrorists. The
Bishop of Mannar has stated that the statue has been placed at St.
Francis Church Mission.
The sacred area has been declared a no war zone and the Sri Lankan
security forces have spared the area from military offensives since
hostilities broke out decades ago.
Meanwhile, three LTTE cadres surrendered to Sri Lanka Army yesterday.
They have repeated the story now known to everyone that three bands of
the LTTE terrorists known as Malthi, Radha and Charles Anthony are
presently occupying the sacred Madhu church premises and had launched
attacks against the security forces over the past few days.
The three LTTE cadres who had surrendered to army camp at Kattiadampan
in Mannar last morning also told that they had to dessert the outfit
due to unbearable harassments they had to suffer in the hands of
senior LTTE cadres.
According to the surrendees, they had been forcibly recruited to the
armed mob called "police" of LTTE in year 2007, and were deployed for
terrorists' activities in the South of Madhu area after few days of
being trained. The three youths had made an abortive attempt to
dessert outfit few months back and later ended up at an LTTE torturing
camp at Ka****apuram in Kilinochchi. Madhu Church
"We had suffered despicable inhuman treatments at the camp. However,
they (LTTE) redeployed us in the Madhu area few weeks ago due to
shortage of cadres; one surrendee has told a defence official.
According to the surrendees, they had managed to escape the LTTE hold
whilst they had been taken to Chettiyarkattiadmapan area, a week ago.
The surrendees have also revealed that large number of LTTE cadres had
a strong presence in the Madhu church at the time that they had left
the area. The terrorists had deployed their heavy and medium caliber
weapons within 100 -75m range around the church premises and often
launched attacks at security forces taking cover from the church, the
surrendees have told. Also, they have revealed that the band led by
Jeyam, had withdrawn his camp from Madhu church as his command from
the back become ineffective to hold the LTTE cadres in the frontlines
against advancing troops.
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