Former Tamil militant who dared LTTE for decades is jailed, over a pistol

In a country awash with illegal weapons, a former veteran Tamil MP and minister in Sri Lanka who took to Tamil militancy in the 1970s but later became a sworn foe of the LTTE has been jailed—over a pistol that went missing after being allegedly given to his party by the government.

The dramatic arrest of Douglas Devananda, founder leader of the Eelam People’s Democratic Front (EPDP), a militant group-turned-political party, has sent shockwaves in the Tamil community, stunning even those who never saw eye to eye with his politics.

Ironically, those celebrating the arrest of the 68-year-old are supporters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which was militarily crushed in 2009 after a quarter-century separatist campaign during which the EPDP led by Douglas, as he is widely known, sided with the Sri Lankan state.

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This has led to speculation in Sri Lanka’s Tamil areas that President Anura Dissanayake’s government may have acted against Douglas with a view to downsize mainstream Tamil political outfits by placating remnants of the LTTE who also look down upon the same Tamil parties but for other reasons.

Pistol found with drug dealer

Douglas was placed under arrest in Colombo on December 26 after being summoned from Jaffna by the police who said they were probing the discovery of a 9-mm semi-automatic pistol given to the EPDP but found with a Sri Lankan drug dealer in 2019.

The criminal, known by his alias Makandure Madush, was killed in a controversial police action in 2010. For six years, no action was taken against Douglas, who sided with successive governments in Colombo. He was a MP for three decades until 2024 and served as the country’s fisheries minister for some 18 years at various periods.

Douglas lost the parliamentary election in November 2024 which catapulted a centre-left coalition led by president Dissanayake’s Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP or People’s Liberation Front) to power with a two-third majority. Douglas’ arrest has taken place a year later.

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Media leaks by the government have sought to make out as if Douglas was personally guilty for the 9-mm pistol that is said to have disappeared from the EPDP kitty. This is precisely what Tamil political activists, including those who disagree with Douglas, refuse to accept.

“I can believe that the pistol was given by the government to the EPDP and ended up in unsavoury hands,” a Tamil leader in Jaffna said. “But to suggest that Douglas is responsible for this is stretching the matter too far.”

Tamil sources say the EPDP, like many other Tamil groups, was given a variety of weapons when the LTTE waged its separatist campaign and frequently killed rival Tamils after dubbing them “traitors” and “paramilitary”.

A survivor and a legend

Douglas became a legend of sorts by surviving several assassination attempts carried out by the LTTE, including once when he jumped out of a first-floor window after the killers barged into his residence-cum-office in Colombo their weapons blazing.

Thousands of Sri Lankan soldiers—the numbers ranging from 10,000 to 30,000—deserted during the civil war, many with weapons. While hundreds returned to military service, many are known to have embraced crime or sold their weapons to persons with dubious background.

An EPDP leader who did not want to be named insisted that as a long-time minister and MP who was protected by Sri Lankan security forces, there was no need for Douglas to connive with anyone in the underworld, more so from the majority Sinhalese community, either for money or other favours.

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The EPDP, the leader added, returned the weapons it was given to the government after Sri Lanka and the LTTE signed a Norway-sponsored truce in 2002. Once the war resumed in 2006, the EPDP and other Tamil groups again got weapons; these too were surrendered once the LTTE was defeated.

“Our contention is the 9 mm (weapon) may have been gone to the underworld from someone within the government,” the source said. “It is easy and convenient to blame the EPDP.”

Why arrest if fishy

Another Tamil source not allied with the EPDP said that many times the government supplied weapons to anti-LTTE Tamil groups in sealed boxes, and signatures were taken even on blank paper to show delivery. “Picking on a prominent Tamil leader over a pistol is fishy.”

Douglas, born in Jaffna in 1957 as Kathiravelu Nythiananda Devananda, was among the earliest Tamils to take to militancy. This was in the 1970s when he, with several others, travelled to the Middle East for military training from Palestinian guerrillas. This is when he acquired the nom de guerre Douglas.

He was originally with the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) and later founded the EPDP. Unlike most Tamil groups which over the years virtually surrendered to the LTTE, Douglas refused to compromise with the Tigers. In the process, he became the most hated figure in the eyes of the LTTE brass and its supporters until bigger “traitors” took his place.

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He was among the Tamils who narrowly survived being killed when Sinhalese criminals thrashed many Tamils to death in a Colombo prison during the 1983 anti-Tamil riots. Subsequently, he escaped from a jail in the eastern town of Batticaloa.

Douglas was also arrested in 1986 in India after one of his aides fired at a crowd in Chennai, killing a man. He later jumped bail. He has since visited New Delhi several times, including as an MP and a Sri Lankan minister.

What’s behind the arrest?

More than one Tamil activist in Jaffna and abroad insist that the JVP, the dominant ruling party in Colombo, is trying to enlist the services of former LTTE fighters in northern Sri Lanka and the pro-LTTE diaspora in the West to woo Tamil voters as the JVP lacks an organized presence in Tamil areas despite winning most parliamentary seats in the region in 2024. This is a disturbing development that can lead to unexpected consequences.

One Tamil academic in Jaffna felt that arresting Douglas would be one way to send a message to mainstream politicians, Tamils included, not to trifle with the JVP.

“After all, if Douglas can be jailed despite risking his life for so long for the Sri Lankan state, then anyone can be taken into custody,” he said. “With 25 years of war, so many weapons must have gone missing or got misplaced. So many people have been killed with legal and illegal weapons in this country that arresting someone, anyone, over a misplaced weapon seems ridiculous.”

An EPDP supporter living in the West agreed: “(President) Dissanayake is now so powerful that the government can do anything, except turn a man into a woman and vice-versa.”

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Sri Lanka has seen thousands of killings since the JVP carried out its first insurrection in 1970-71 in a violent bid to seize power. The JVP’s second and bloodier insurrection took place in 1987-89. In both periods, many innocent Sinhalese were killed both by security forces and JVP militants.

On the other side of the island, tens of thousands of Tamils, both combatants and innocent civilians, were killed during the LTTE-driven war for a separate Tamil state. Douglas would have been one of the victims had the LTTE succeeded in killing him.

Former LTTE members who fought to split Sri Lanka have now found their way into the JVP in the island’s north will welcome 2026 as free men. But Douglas, who fought the Tigers for decades on the side of Sri Lanka, will spend the New Year in a prison. His court hearing is due on January 9. Is it the irony of fate?