DNA tests on body of Prabhakaran

The body of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, is to undergo DNA and forensic tests along with the corpses of other top rebels, said officials

DNA tests on body of Prabhakaran

The body of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, is to undergo DNA and forensic tests along with the corpses of other top rebels, said officials.

Prabhakaran was killed yesterday morning along with two of his deputies after a two-hour battle when they tried to break to freedom through advancing government troops, defence officials said. His body was badly burnt when his armour-plated van was hit by a rocket and burst into flames.

State television broke into its regular programming to announce Prabhakaran's death, and the government information department sent a text message to cell phones across the country confirming that he was dead.
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Mass celebrations

The announcement prompted mass celebrations around the country, and people poured into the streets of Colombo dancing and singing.

"We have successfully ended the war," Gotabhaya Rajapakse, Sri Lanka's Defence Secretary, formally told President Mahinda Rajapakse, in a televised ceremony.
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Officials said that 40 of the 300 dead bodies found at the scene of the terrorists' last stand have been shifted to a government hospital, with the army taking special charge of Prabhakaran's corpse.

Closing in

Troops closed in on Prabhakaran and his last remaining loyalists early in the morning.

He and his top deputies reportedly tried to escape by driving their armour-plated van, accompanied by a bus filled with rebel fighters, straight at approaching Lankan forces, sparking a battle. The battle only ended when troops fired a rocket at the van. Troops pulled Prabhakaran's body out and identified it.

Earlier, the military announced that it had killed Prabhakaran's son Charles Anthony.

India's helping hand
India will send 25 tonnes of medicines worth over Rs 3 crore to help the internally displaced population in the northern parts of the island nation.

"An Indian Air Force IL-76 aircraft carrying about 25 tonnes of medicines is scheduled to leave Delhi for Colombo on Friday," Defence Ministry officials confirmed yesterday.

In March, Indian Armed Forces had set up a fully equipped 50-bed hospital near a relief camp in Pulmodai.

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