TMVP leader Pillaiyaan’s arrest, 2019 Easter bombings and Azad Maulana’s revelations

THE advent of the Local Authority elections in 2025 saw the emergence of a new electoral alliance in Eastern Sri Lanka. The Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP) led by Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan (spelled as Santhirakanthan also) alias Pillaiyan and the Thamil Makkal Thesiya Kootani alias Vinayagamoorthy Muraliharan alias “Cdr. Karuna joined the new alliance.

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The Kizhakku Thamilzhar Kootamaippu means Eastern Tamil Alliance (ETA) in Tamil. The new alliance commenced its local poll campaign enthusiastically in the east. The alliance hoped to attract the votes of Eastern Tamils by focusing on the inadequacies of Tamil parties with a ‘soft’ Tamil leadership and the problems caused by alleged Muslim expansionism in the east.

Even as the Eastern Tamil Alliance campaign gathered momentum, disaster struck the triumvirate of straddling parties unless Pillaiyan seems to have gone awry.

Pillaiyan how-ever hoped to make a political comeback through the local authority polls. The formation of the Eastern Tamil Alliance was expected to help achieve that purpose. Now Pillaiyan’s plans seem to have gone awry.

The former eastern chief minister was arrested by a team of Police officers from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on 8 April. Chandrakanthan known widely by his nom de guerre “Pillaiyan” was in his party office in Batticaloa when the arrest was made. Pillaiyan was initially detained for 72 hours under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) for questioning.

According to earlier media reports Pillaiyan had been arrested by the Police in connection with the disappearance of Former Eastern University vice-chancellor Prof. Sivasubramaniam Raveendranath in Colombo on 15 December 2006. Police sources were quoted as saying that they hoped to elicit more information about Pillaiyan’s alleged involvement in the eastern varsity vice-chancellor’s enforced disappearance and also about other suspected abductions and enforced dis-appearances in the east in the past.