Pon Sivapalan (1952 – 11 September 1998) was a

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

n mayor of

Jaffna Jaffna (, ; , ) is the capital city of the Northern Province, Sri Lanka, Northern Province of Sri Lanka. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jaffna District located on a Jaffna Peninsula, peninsula of the same name. With a population o ...

, who served briefly in 1998 when he was assassinated. Sivapalan succeeded

Sarojini Yogeswaran Sarojini Yogeswaran (née Ponnambalam; died in 1998) was the first female mayor of Jaffna, a city in northern Sri Lanka. She served from 1997 until her assassination. Yogeswaran was a member of the Tamil United Liberation Front and was the first ...

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...

after she was assassinated in 1998 by the

LTTE The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE; , ; also known as the Tamil Tigers) was a Tamil militant organization, that was based in the northern and eastern Sri Lanka. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam ...

. Like Yogeswaran, Sivapalan belonged to the

Tamil United Liberation Front The Tamil United Liberation Front (, ) is a political party in Sri Lanka. Formation On 4 May 1972, several Tamil political groups, including the Federal Party (ITAK), Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), and All Ceylon Tamil Congress formed the Tami ...

. He too was assassinated, on 11 September 1998, when a mine exploded in the Jaffna city council chambers with

Sri Lanka Army The Sri Lanka Army (; ) is the oldest and largest of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces. The army was officially established as the Ceylon Army in 1949, though the army traces its roots back in 1881 when Ceylon Light Infantry Volunteers was created; ...

Jaffna town commander, Brigadier Susantha Mendis and his Principal Staff Officer (PSO), Captain Ramanayaka and Senior Superintendent of Police in charge of Jaffna Division, Chandra Perera. Later it was identified as a Claymore bomb attack and the LTTE was believed to be responsible. Following Sivapalan's death, the Jaffna mayoral office had been officially dissolved and has remained under the purview of the Government Agent of the Jaffna district.

References

External links

Human Rights Watch report

1952 births 1998 deaths Tamil politicians Assassinated mayors Mayors of Jaffna Asian politicians assassinated in the 1990s Politicians assassinated in 1998 Politicians assassinated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam {{NorthernLK-politician-stub