LTTE hands over 600 bodies
Army captures Mankulam: Plane may have been hijacked

COLOMBO, Sept 30 (PTI) — The Sri Lankan Army today claimed the capture of a strategic town, even as the LTTE handed over 600 bodies of Sri Lankan soldiers to the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC).

A defence press note here said the troops had captured Mankulam town this morning. Mankulam town connects Mullaithivu in the eastern side with Mannar and Jaffna road in the West. The rebels were using the town as the most strategic junction with fortified bunkers and defensive positions, the press note said.

The capture of Mankulam by the Army comes after the fall of Kilinochchi to the LTTE.

In another development, the ICRC said the LTTE had handed over 600 bodies of slain troops at the battle of Kilinochchi for the past four days. An Army spokesman here, however, said the figure could be confirmed only after verification.

"In the past the LTTE has sent decomposed bodies of its own cadre stating that they were Sri Lankan soldiers. The identity of the bodies would be verified before confirming the figure", the spokesman said.

The success at Mankulam came after a five-month-long battle in which the LTTE resisted the Army advance tooth and nail.

Meanwhile the Sri Lankan Air Force and Navy continued their search operations for a civil airline plane which went missing with 54 passengers, including four Russian pilots, on board.

According to the latest reports, the plane lost contact with the base station at Jaffna about five minutes after it took off.

"It could have been either shot down or blasted in the air", sources at Lion Air, which owns the plane, said.

The plane went missing two weeks after the LTTE issued a warning to the two civil airlines not to operate flights to Jaffna. The list of passengers travelling included 12 women.

An official of the airline said the plane may have been hijacked. The Russian-made AN-32 transport plane with 54 persons on board, including a six-member crew, had disappeared without any trace and there had been no reports of a crash, he said.

"The possibility of hijack does exist because there is no trace of the aircraft", said Lion Air's Director of Operations, Air Vice-Marshal (retired) Pady Mendis.

The defence correspondent of a local daily, the Island, said an MI-24 helicopter gunship of the Sri Lankan Air Force which went missing off the Mullaitivu coast in March 1997 may have fallen into the hands of the rebels.

The helicopter was piloted by three Ukranians, the report said, adding "bearing in mind the fact that the Ukranians were mercenaries who were flying only for money, it is quite possible that they hijacked the chopper and landed in the LTTE territory".

The report said that an unidentified helicopter had been noticed flying low in the North a few days ago and it could be the missing chopper.

Military analysts said the capture of Mankulam was a poor consolation for the loss of the bigger and more strategic Kilinochchi town, 30 km northwards.

Informed sources in Madras said that Kilinochchi, the former LTTE political headquarters which fell to the troops in September, 1996, was now under the control of the rebels.

The LTTE today said the bodies of soldiers killed were rotting at the battle scene. "The bodies, which are in a highly decomposed state, are lying in bushes and roadsides in Kilinochchi and Paranthan and there is stench in the whole area", the LTTE's clandestine Voice of Tigers Radio reported.

Tamil sources in the northern Vavuniya town quoted the radio saying that the LTTE was making arrangements for the burial of 240 of their cadres killed. They would be buried at the "Heroes Cemetery"' the radio said.