Prabhakaran’s sister plans library on family land; council seeks memorial

A family member of Velupillai Prabhakaran has plans to open a public library on the land that once housed the ancestral home of the slain Tamil Tigers leader in Sri Lanka’s northern tip but the local urban council wants a memorial for the legendary rebel too.

The modest two-bedroom house where Prabhakaran was raised at Velvettiturai or VVT in Jaffna was demolished by the military in 2010, a year after the guerrilla chieftain was killed and his Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was routed, ending decades of a bloody separatist war.

Now, the elder of Prabhakaran’s two sisters, Jegadeeswari Mathiyaparan, who reportedly holds the legal title for that property, wants a public library to come up at the site.

Building plan submitted

Jegadeeswari, who apparently lives in Tamil Nadu, has submitted the building plan (see below) for the proposed library to the Velvettiturai Urban Council, its chairman, MK Shivajilingam, said in a telephonic interview.

Shivajilingam, a Tamil militant-turned-politician, was born in and still lives in Velvettiturai, which sits at the edge of the Sri Lanka’s northern coast and which produced several fighters for the LTTE, Prabhakaran included.

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Now 68, Shivajilingam was once opposed to the Tigers but later became a diehard Prabhakaran loyalist. He was among those who claimed for long that Prabhakaran escaped death in 2009 and was alive in a European country.

Property claimed by nature

The proposed library, to cover an area of 1184.66 square feet, would be constructed where Prabhakaran’s family house once stood and which has remained abandoned for over 15 years, leading to wild vegetation growth.

When the military demolished the Prabhakaran family house to erase anything that could mark the insurgent leader’s legacy, the soldiers took away even the debris.

“The sister has given us the building plan because our urban council has to give approval for the new building,” Shivajilingam said.

Memorial hinges on sister’s nod

He said the urban council proposed to write to the sister to also agree to put up the busts of Prabhakaran’s late parents and perhaps a board saying the house was Prabhakaran’s childhood abode.

“If she agrees, these can also happen. Her permission is important,” he said. “We will make a humble request. If she gives her okay, it will be well and good. If she does not, then only the library will be established.”

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Shivajilingam could not say how long it would take the library to be built once construction starts, and what would be the estimated cost of the project.

But he added that he believed that Prabhakaran’s sister had the support of a section of the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora settled primarily in the West.

Death of parents

Prabhakaran, who was born in November 1954, was the youngest of four siblings. His elder brother lives in Denmark while another sister is a Canadian citizen.

Prabhakaran’s parents, Thiruvengadam Velupillai and Parvati Pillai, were in the LTTE-held territory when the military overwhelmed the group in 2009.

The two later moved into a refugee camp for displaced Tamils before the military took them into custody after learning that they were the parents of the slain Prabhakaran.

While Velupillai died in custody in January 2010, his wife was released but she passed away in February 2011.

Vanishing from memory?

Tamil sources said the Velupillai family home—where Prabhakaran lived until the 1970s when he went underground, never to return home—passed into the hands of the elder sister as part of their society’s matriarchal custom.

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Since the LTTE was militarily routed, its supporters—the most vocal of whom reside in the West—have been trying to perpetuate the memory of the group as well as Prabhakaran.

According to Shivajilingam, while the older generation of Tamils in Velvettiturai “certainly remembers Prabhakaran, many younger Tamils have a different view”.

Fading dreams of a Tamil nation

Shivajilingam is one of the Tamil politicians in Sri Lanka who keep parroting the once-feared LTTE’s stated goals even while not taking the group’s name.

In January this year, as the chairman of the Velvettiturai Urban Council, he urged the United States, in a letter to some members of the Congress, “to assume a leadership role in restoring the Tamil nation’s legitimate sovereignty”.

In that communication, Shivajilingam described Velvettiturai as “the hallowed birth land of the Eelam freedom and independence movements”.

New role for Tamil guerrillas

The move to erect a library in the house where Prabhakaran lived until he became a teenager has already caused some convulsions in Sri Lanka, with one Opposition leader accusing the government of backing the project.

Also read: Giving no rest to Prabhakaran’s legacy

Tamil sources said that while the government had nothing to do with the proposed library, it was unlikely to put any impediments in its construction for more reasons than one.

One key factor is that Sri Lanka’s dominant ruling party, the Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP or People’s Liberation Front), which bitterly opposed the LTTE during the war, is now quietly wooing former LTTE guerrillas to work for it in the island nation’s north since the JVP itself lacks a mass base there.

JVP’s tight-rope walk

In the process, the JVP is walking a tight rope—not saying or doing anything in support of the still outlawed Tigers but allowing or turning a blind eye to the activities by some of its supporters.

This included the permission given to an annual LTTE event to pay homage to its fighters in November 2025. At the same time, officials did not permit Prabhakaran’s photos or LTTE flags to be put up anywhere.

“I am sure the library will come up in VVT and soon,” a Tamil source said, referring to Velvettiturai. “But I doubt if Prabhakaran’s sister will allow anything else that could make the library project controversial.”