On the Notoriety and Nitty Gritty of Hit Lists

Sachi Sri Kantha: "The India Today magazine of April 15, 1992 (pp.28-31) carried a three page “Special Report” authored by Anirudhya Mitra, from the then Madras. On page 28, with a boxed caption, “The Hit List”, four photographs of prominent Tamil Nadu individuals were placed;

(1) J.Jayalalitha, the chief minister of the state,
(2) D.R.Karthikeyan, the then chief of Special Investigation Team which “investigated” the Rajiv Gandhi assassination which had occurred in May 1991,
(3) Vazhapadi Ramamurthy, the then president of Tamil Nadu Congress Committee of the Congress Party, and
(4) S.Sripal, the then Deputy General of Police of the state.

The report stated, that the “LTTE supremo V.Pirabhakaran is reported to have sent a suicide squad to eliminate those [i.e., these above mentioned four individuals] who have done damage to its once-vaunted Tamil Nadu network.”

Though the author of this “Special Report” was recorded in the magazine as Anirudhya Mitra, it was an open secret who manufactured this junk and fed it to Mitra.

Taking a cue from Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi, the Tamil Nadu’s tweedledum and tweedledee of politics since 1989, the two media-savvy Tamil politicians in Colombo (namely Lakshman Kadirgamar and Douglas Devananda) who had aligned with President Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1994 also began to whistle the tune of “being in the hit list of LTTE” for their political survival.

Devananda had prided himself as a survivor of the 1983 Welikade prison massacre of Tamils by the Sinhalese Establishment. It stands to reason to ask him, whose hit list he escaped in 1983? Since March 2004, the fence-sitting sour-grape Sangaree, the current holder of an empty TULF throne, picked up the same tune of “being in the hit list of LTTE” to whistle, when his political perfidy came to be exposed.

I also noticed that while sin-eaters like Kadirgamar, Devananda and Sangaree had voluntarily promoted their selfish interests by whistling the tune of “being in the hit list of LTTE”, even some sensible individuals like Sonia Gandhi who didn’t give a hoot about such “hit list of LTTE” were unwillingly portrayed as purported targets of such a hit list. This happened after the Supreme Court verdict on Rajiv Gandhi assassination trial was released in May 1999. Having been humbled by the not-so favourable verdict delivered by the three Supreme Court Justices Wadhwa, Thomas and Quadri, the RAW’s pundits elevated Rajiv Gandhi’s widow Sonia’s name into LTTE’s purported hit list.

The anti-LTTE pontificator D.B.S.Jeyaraj swallowed the RAW’s rope lock stock and barrel, to wail that Sonia Gandhi’s life is in danger from LTTE. In a shameful piece of self-indulging servility to RAW’s pundits, Jeyaraj sobbed as follows: “…the potential danger to Sonia Gandhi from the LTTE is always there. That threat is something that cannot be disregarded as improbable. Therefore, it would be prudent for the authorities to provide maximum security to Sonia Gandhi and also exercise a constant vigil in this respect.” [‘Sonia and the Tigers’, Frontline magazie, July 3-16, 1999] Happily for all of us, now six years later, Sonia Gandhi is still alive and kicking.

Essence of Hit Lists

Having been an interested watcher of released political hit lists in the media for over a decade, here are the synopses of my findings.

(1) For iconoclasts, to be on the hit list of a state’s intelligence set up is a badge of honor. Fidel Castro was on CIA’s hit list. Yasser Arafat was on MOSSAD’s hit list. Pirabhakaran has been on RAW’s as well as Sri Lankan intelligence gang’s hit list.

(2) Every intelligence agency worth its salt has to have a hit list. Research reveals that the most successful hit list holding agency was Israel’s MOSSAD. It culled quite a number of the heads of PLO’s deputies.

(3) Some prominent individuals land in more than one hit list, and when they indeed get hit, it’ll be almost impossible to find out whose hit list did the job. For example, President J.F.Kennedy was purportedly on many hit lists [that of KBG, Castro, Mafia, Oswald, Ruby etc.] and who was the real culprit still remains a puzzle.

The same was true for Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi as well.

Here is Jain Commission Report on Rajiv Gandhi’s landing in many hit lists. To quote,

“Available material before the Commission suggests that Shri Rajiv Gandhi was facing extremely grave threats from Sri Lankan Tamil militants and their Indian sympathisers, fanatic Sinhala elements of Sri Lanka, Sikh terrorists operating from Punjab as well as foreign countries, Kashmiri militant groups operating from India as well as foreign countries, Afghan Mujahideens, Islamic fundamentalists from Pakistan, certain groups within the Government of Pakistan, some groups connected with the Royal Family of Nepal, terrorist elements operating from North Eastern India, notably ULFA and aggrieved individual elements. There were also hints of certain outside powers involving themselves with some of these hostile forces.” [Jain Commission Report, August 1997, vol.3, chapter 3].

(4) As for any commodity, hit lists are of two types; the real and the fake. Simple common sense dictates that if LTTE indeed has a hit list, it cannot continue to be a lively organization, if its purported hit list is in the files of every media organization [Also see below, the note on Karuna.]

(5) Fake hit lists are very much in demand in the political theater.

(6) Fake hit lists are mostly manufactured by lazy crooks in the media, from the feeds of underground skunks.

(7) Crooked politicians who’ll lick anybody’s feet to advance their careers [a good example now is V.Anandasangaree, who now prides about his past association with the Trotskyist Sinhalese leaders and his current links to the racist Jathika Hela Urumaya] make use of fake hit lists to gain sympathy and attention of the media.

(8) It is worthwhile to remind memory-challenged politicians like Anandasangaree that the rowdy elements of Sinhalese dominated Governments of Sri Lanka have viciously targeted prominent fighters of Tamil rights since 1956, when Pirabhakaran was a toddler. Just a few examples.

On whose hit list was the then young Federal Party MP, A.Amirthalingam in 1956 when he was hit in Galle Face Green during satyagraha campaign? On whose hit list was the then TULF MP, V.Yogeswaran in 1981, when his Jaffna house was burnt in conjuction with the worst bibliocaust in recent Asian history? On whose hit list was the TULF President M.Sivasithamparam in 1983 anti-Tamil riots, when his rented Colombo house was attacked? On whose hit list was G.G.(Kumar) Ponnambalam in 2000, when he was assassinated?

(9) As for LTTE’s purported hit list, how come Karuna – a high ranking LTTE insider for more than a decade according to media blurbs - could not reveal it’s details last year [or until now] to the news-hungry media in Colombo and Chennai, while he was throwing mud on everything which has happened in LTTE under Pirabhakaran? Only two inferences can be made. Either, there is no LTTE hit list, or Karuna was not a ranking LTTE insider.

(10) No human in this world can escape from one real hit list – that of Grim Reaper. Ask Vazhapadi Ramamurthy who has to answer the summons in October 2002."