Paramilitary leader Pillayan further remanded in five-murder probe

Former Sri Lankan state minister and paramilitary leader Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, widely known as Pillayan, has been further remanded until 12 August over a Criminal Investigation Department probe into five killings in Batticaloa in 2008.

The order was issued by the Batticaloa Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, after Pillayan was produced before Magistrate A. Darshini via video link.

Pillayan, who is being held under Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act, has been named as the third suspect in the case filed by the CID in connection with five murders committed in the Batticaloa district in 2008.

The CID previously told court that Pillayan had been named as a suspect in connection with three separate shooting incidents in the Eastern Province in 2008.

The first incident took place on 9 January 2008 near a playground close to the Murugan Temple in Kallady, Batticaloa, where two people, including a former police officer, were shot dead. The second shooting took place on 22 May 2008 on the main road in Kattankudy, where two more people were killed. A fifth person was shot dead by an armed group in Kothiyapulai, in the Vavunathivu area, on 20 August that year.

At an earlier hearing, Pillayan dismissed the allegations against him as fabricated. The case has renewed attention on Pillayan’s long and controversial role in the Eastern Province.

He leads the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal, the paramilitary group that emerged after the 2004 split led by Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, known as Karuna Amman, from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The TMVP aligned itself with the Sri Lankan state and became a key paramilitary force in the East, facing sustained allegations of abductions, killings, intimidation and other abuses against Tamils. Pillayan went on to contest the 2008 Eastern Provincial Council election under Mahinda Rajapaksa and was installed as chief minister of the Eastern Province. He later served as a state minister under Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The renewed murder probe also follows fresh scrutiny over other unresolved cases linked to Pillayan and the TMVP.

 Earlier this year, the CID formally linked Pillayan to the abduction and killing of Eastern University Vice Chancellor Professor Sivasubramaniam Raveendranath, who disappeared in Colombo in December 2006 while travelling through a heavily militarised area. Raveendranath’s remains have never been found.

Pillayan was arrested in April 2025 in connection with an abduction and disappearance investigation and has remained in custody since then.

He has also faced earlier allegations over the assassination of Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Joseph Pararajasingham. Pararajasingham was shot dead on Christmas Day 2005 while attending midnight mass at St Mary’s Cathedral in Batticaloa. His wife, Sugunam Pararajasingham, was seriously wounded in the attack, alongside several other civilians. Pillayan was arrested in 2015 over the assassination and spent years in remand custody before being released on bail in 2020. The Attorney General later dropped the case against him in 2021, during the presidency of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The case is expected to be taken up again on 12 August.