Voting begins in Sri Lanka's Northern Province

Colombo, Sep 21:

began on Saturday for a semi-autonomous council in

's Northern Province, the only region of the country not to have such a council, according to a report on BBC.

The voting comes four years after the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the predominantly Tamil region of Sri Lanka. The LTTE had been battling the island nation's army for over two decades.

The polling exercise is fraught with tension. The editor of Udhayan, a major newspaper in the area, told the BBC correspondent in Colombo that a whole print run of his paper had appeared in a fake version, appealing to people to boycott the polls.

Many people consider the election a start to a new political beginning in the country and say that this election will decide the political future of the Tamils.

IANS