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Army takes total control of Sampur

B. Muralidhar Reddy

Residents of captured town unaccounted for

— PHOTO: Sriyantha Walpola

IN TOTAL CONTROL: Soldiers escort returning refugees to Muttur in eastern Sri Lanka on Friday.

SAMPUR (Sri Lanka): Men of the Sri Lankan Army contingent which is guarding this newly "conquered" strategic town, which was a military base of the LTTE, just cannot hide their glee, and for good reason.

According to them, the "defeat" of the LTTE is comprehensive. Even the occasional gunfire, witnessed in the first few hours after the fall of Sampur on September 4, has stopped and the soldiers move in and out of the territory with ease.

To demonstrate its total hold on Sampur and the 25-km-long territory up to the coast, the military took groups of national and international journalists from Colombo to the area. As if to emphasise its new-found confidence in dealing with the Tigers, the journalists were taken by road all the way in and out, lasting 26 hours.

A rare feature, according to observers, given the embarrassments the Government suffered in the past while executing such ventures.

The visiting journalists, who were taken up to 5 km into the territory, were struck by the elaborate military, civil and administrative infrastructure the LTTE had built in the zone. The township had at least two full-fledged schools, a couple of banks and a number of offices of the "Tamil Eelam." Buildings in the town, including schools and other structures, appear to have been ransacked. It was not clear who did it.

The elation of the army over the fall of Sampur is not difficult to understand. The Sampur base of the LTTE had done the maximum damage to the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government since April last year. The Sri Lankan naval base in Trincomalee, 20 km away, took big hits twice. Even the air base was hit.

The fall of Sampur is a big loss for the LTTE by any reckoning. It is the first change in territorial control for any side after the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement. However, one intriguing fact about Sampur is the disappearance of the 10,000-odd inhabitants.

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