Sea Tigers' boat destroyed

Chennai, Feb 20 (UNI) The Indian Coast Guard and the state police today destroyed the 'Sea Tigers' boat seized by the Coast Guard a few days back at mid-sea off the Tamil Nadu coast after investigators found huge quantity of explosives hidden in it.

In a release here, Tamil Nadu DGP D Mukherjee said the five suspects on the boat, intercepted by Coast Guard ship 'Rama Devi' on February 13, told police their boat hid explosives that could be activated by a switch.

The 'Q' Branch CID Police, investigating the case, took the help of bomb experts to conduct a search of the boat and found the explosives hidden between fibre sheets.

They obtained permission from the metropolitan magistrate here to de-activate the explosives, he added.

'Avvaiyar,' a Coast Guard ship, towed the boat 20 nautical miles off the Chennai coast into the sea where the explosives were detonated in a controlled explosion destroying the boat, in the presence of police officers, officials of Central and state intelligence agencies and bomb experts of the commando force, he added.

The boat belonged to the 'Sea Tigers,' the 'naval' wing of the LTTE and was tracked down while it was sailing away from the Sri Lankan Coast to avoid interception by the island nation's navy.

It started its journey from the Sri Lankan island of Iranaiteevu and was returning to a point at sea north of the Jaffna Peninsula apparently to transfer explosive materials and food supplies to another Sea Tiger ship when it was caught by the Indian Coast Guard.

The authorities seized an AK-56 rifle, 126 rounds of ammunition, five hand grenades, a suicide jacket with explosives, a satellite phone, a GPS and eight barrels of liquid chemical.

They arrested five persons, including four Sri lankan Tamils on board. One of them, Arumainayagam Purushothaman, was a member of the Sea Tigers while another, Siva Padmanabhan, was a driver with the LTTE.

Sagayam and Arumugam were allegedly supporters of the LTTE. The fifth person Ramachandran hailed from Tamil Nadu.

UNI