Pon. Sivakumaran, the first Tamil to die in the liberation struggle, was remembered today in Urumpirai, Jaffna, on the 52nd anniversary of his death.
Sivakumaran was a member of the Tamil Manavar Peravai (or Tamil Student Federation, TSF) and a leading militant in the early armed Tamil struggle.
On 5th June 1974, Sivakumaran was surrounded by Sri Lankan security forces. He had previously been tortured during an earlier detention in police custody for damaging property of those responsible for the conference killings.
Evading torture, Sivakumaran committed suicide using a capsule of cyanide, in order to negate the risk of revealing information that jeopardised the growing Tamil armed resistance movement.
Sivakumaran's relatives, politicians, civil society activists and local residents gathered at his memorial statue in Urumpirai, where they garlanded his statue and lit candles to remember his sacrifice.
The memorial statue was built in 1974 following his death but was destroyed three years later by Sri Lankan security forces during the 1977 anti-Tamil pogrom. Although it was rebuilt in 1999, the remnants of the original statue have been kept to this day.
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