Velupillai Prabhakaran was born in the northern coastal town of Velvettithurai. A Hindu[citation needed] by birth, he joined the student group TIP, during the standardization debates.[9] In 1972 Prabhakaran founded an organization named Tamil New Tigers (TNT)[10] which was a successor to many initial organizations that protested against the post colonial political direction of the country that pitted the minority Sri Lankan Tamils against the majority Sinhalese people.Political situation[›]
In 1975, after becoming heavily involved in the Tamil movement, he carried out his first political murder against the mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiappah, by shooting him at point blank range while he was about to enter the Hindu temple at Ponnaalai. The assassination was in response to the 1974 Tamil conference incident, and the Tamil radicals had blamed Alfred Duraiappah,[11] because he backed the then Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) implicated in the violence as well as for allegedly betraying the Tamil nationalist sentiments in the Jaffna peninsula.[12]
On May 5, 1976, the TNT was renamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), commonly known as the Tamil Tigers.[13]
Religion is not a major factor in his philosophy or ideology, but there the LTTE can be characterized as anti-Buddhist.[14] The LTTE is also an organization that does not cite any material from religion or religious texts in any of its ideological documents and propaganda but are driven only by the idea of Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism and considers it as the only single-minded approach and inspiration towards the attainment of an independent Tamil Eelam.
In 1975, after becoming heavily involved in the Tamil movement, he carried out his first political murder against the mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiappah, by shooting him at point blank range while he was about to enter the Hindu temple at Ponnaalai. The assassination was in response to the 1974 Tamil conference incident, and the Tamil radicals had blamed Alfred Duraiappah,[11] because he backed the then Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) implicated in the violence as well as for allegedly betraying the Tamil nationalist sentiments in the Jaffna peninsula.[12]
On May 5, 1976, the TNT was renamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), commonly known as the Tamil Tigers.[13]
Religion is not a major factor in his philosophy or ideology, but there the LTTE can be characterized as anti-Buddhist.[14] The LTTE is also an organization that does not cite any material from religion or religious texts in any of its ideological documents and propaganda but are driven only by the idea of Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism and considers it as the only single-minded approach and inspiration towards the attainment of an independent Tamil Eelam.
