27 Reported Killed as Indian Troops Battle Tamil Rebels
Twenty-seven people were killed and 20 others were injured Sunday in a clash between Tamil guerrillas and Indian peacekeeping forces in northern Sri Lanka, official sources said.
Meanwhile, police in southern Sri Lanka said that two members of President Junius R. Jayewardene’s ruling party were shot to death Saturday night, and they blamed the banned Sinhalese People’s Liberation Front for the killings.
The front is opposed to Jayewardene’s plan to grant limited automony to the Tamil-dominated north and east.
Most of the casualties in the clash between rebels and Indian troops were said to be members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the largest Tamil guerrilla group fighting for an independent homeland in the north and east of Sri Lanka.
Sources said that an unspecified number of civilians were killed in the fighting, which took place in Vandaramollai, about nine miles west of the town of Batticaloa.
The area has been under curfew since Friday while 6,000 Indian troops conduct house-to-house searches for Tiger members believed to have regrouped in the east after Indian forces ousted them from their strongholds in the north around Jaffna.
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