Spokesman of the Sri Lanka Army Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasooriya says there are thousands of cases of LTTE members, who are reported missing or dead but are living in other countries. 

 “Despite repeated requests from Lanka, foreign governments have not shared details of Lankans seeking refugee status,” Wanigasooriya has told Indian media yesterday.

The statement comes in the wake of the arrest of Sri Lankan Tamil refugee K Thayapararajah and his wife Uthayakala, who were arrested under the Indian Foreigner’s Act at Dha-nushkodi in Tamil Nadu on May 6.

They had been functionaries of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and are not innocent Tamils fleeing the island nation because of “pe-rsecution,” the Military spokesman said.

According to Indian media reports, the duo surrendered to the Lankan army at the end of Eelam War IV, but had paid their way out of detention. "To escape the Security Forces’ dragnet, and make their way out of the island, Thayapararajah had indulged in elaborate deceptions, "Wanigasooriya said.

“In Tamil Nadu he had kept his links with the LTTE under the hat and pretended to be just an engineer. Earli-er, he had published a picture of his dead body in order to acquire a new identity and escape from the island,” he added

According to Special Report No: 34 of the University Teachers for Human Rights-Jaffna (UTHR-J), dated December 13, 2009, Thayapararajah had joined “Vanni Tech” an LTTE-aided computer institute, as its Director. A Lankan security expert, who did not want to be identified, said that as per the Government Database, at Vanni Tech, Thayapararajah had developed electronic circuit chips for bomb timers and had invented the magnetic vibration bomb.

But friction developed between him and Charles Anthony, Prabhakaran’s son and computer buff. Thayapararajah was sacked. At the end  of  Eelam War IV, he surrendered to the army. According to UTHR-J, he “died” of gunshot wounds sustained while in detention near Colombo on September 15, 2009. This case was widely cited by several human rights organisations in later years.

According to the UTHR-J, Uthayakala was a member of the LTTE’s women’s wing. (With inputs from The New Indian Express)