Brigadier Balraj Passes Away in a Sudden Heart Attack - LTTE

Killinochchi - A most senior member of The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Brigadier, Balraj has passed away in a sudden heart attack today at around 2:00 P.M and Tamil Eelam has declared three days mourning period 21, 22, and 23, according to the LTTE sources in Vanni.

Brigadier Balraj was the first special commander of the Charles Anthony Brigade when it was formed in 1991. The elite formation has its own military academies, research units and defence colleges for its officer corps.

Brigadier Balraj has commanded the Charles Antony Brigade between 1991-1993 and between 1995-1997 was also an expert on different forms of warfare, including psychological operations, and deployed different tactics during the planning and the conduct of operations against Sri Lankan Security Forces.

Brigadier Balraj

During the LTTE offensive on Elephant Pass, in March 2000, Commander Balraj, gave the lie to the assumption that no rear depth of defence of a state's conventional army can be seriously threatened by anyone except an armed force with strategic air power, when the Sea Tigers fought their way through a sea barrier formed by a large Sri Lanka Navy flotilla in rough seas to land 1200 troops and their supplies at Kudarappu-Maamunai, in the SF's rear.

Brigadier Balraj also credited with first deploying women fighting groups in the successful attack against Mankulam camp in 1990.

Balraj had a heart surgery in Singapore in 2003 during the Cease Fire Agreement. He has been hospitalised for 3 months earlier this year, according to informed sources in Vanni.

Balraj, the LTTE's most experienced and senior commander who taught war tactics and strategy to thousands of LTTE carders had engaged himself in Mannaar and Manalaaru war front in between his medical treatments, the sources further said.

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