The Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), a key paramilitary asset in the Sri Lanka Army’s shadow war against the Liberation Tigers, suffered several attacks the past week amid a general escalation in the violence.

In the most prominent attack, a time bomb ripped open a van scheduled to transport a close aide of EPDP leader Douglas Devananda last Thursday. Mr. Anthonipillai Jeyaraja, suspected to be the paramilitary group’s intelligence chief, escaped as he had been detained in his office and was late for his regular journey to work.

Mr Jeyaraja was in his residence at the Wellawatte office of the EPDP-owned and run Thinamurasu newspaper at the time the bomb went off in a van parked nearby. The Daily Mirror newspaper quoted Wellawatte police Inspector Nihal Mendis as saying among the injured were the driver and a fish seller.

Meanwhile, on the same day unidentified gunmen shot dead a senior member of the EPDP at Palaiyootru, a suburb in Trincomalee town. Two waiting gunmen killed Mr. Kingsely Weeraratne as he passed by on his way home.

A few days later the EPDP’s Pottuvil organiser was murdered. Mr. Abubhakkar Sagabdeen was without his usual police escort when he was shot dead on Pottuvil main road by a gunman on a bicycle last Monday.

The following day, another EPDP member was found shot dead 10 km north of the Trincomalee town along the Trincomalee-Kuchchaveli main road. Police said a group of unidentified people had abducted Mr. Sivalingam Vilvarajah on Saturday. His wife had been told not to inform anyone as he would be released after an inquiry.

The EPDP is one of the largest paramilitary groups operating alongside the Sri Lanka Army in counter-insurgency operations against the Liberation Tigers and is an important asset in the ongoing shadow war against the LTTE.

Scores of LTTE cadres and supporters, Army intelligence officers and paramilitary cadres have died in a cycle of violence which escalated last year in the wake of the defection to the Army of a renegade LTTE commander, Karuna.

The group has also fielded candidates, including its leader, Mr. Douglas Devananda, in elections, securing a seat in Parliament. But critics accuse the group of rigging elections in Army controlled areas close to its base camps.

Jaffna journalist Mr. Mylvaganam Nimalrajan was shot dead by suspected EPDP cadres in 2000 after he criticised the group’s activities, including electoral malpractices.

Mr. Devananda, who has survived several assassination attempts, has made no secret of his links with the Karuna Group, named after the renegade commander. The Karuna Group is spearheading the Army-backed campaign against the Tigers.

The Liberation Tigers and the Sri Lanka Army blamed each other this week for the murders of Jaffna Central College principal, K. Rajadurai and Kopay Christian College principal Nadarajah Sivakadacham.

Residents of Jaffna have been shocked by the killings this week of the principles of two secondary schools.

LTTE Jaffna political wing leader C Ilamparithi was quoted by the BBC as saying that both the killings were carried out by Sri Lankan military intelligence with cadres of the paramilitary Eelam Peoples Democratic Party (EPDP).

However, the Sri Lanka Army and the EPDP leader Douglas Devananda blamed the LTTE.

Sivakadadcham was one of the chief organisers of the massive Tamil Resurgence rally on September 30, which drew over 200,000 people to demand for their right to self-determination.

He was killed Tuesday night outside his front door in Army dominated Jaffna by gunmen who fled on a motorbike.

Devananda admitted the Kopay Christian College principal was a LTTE sympathiser “until recently” the BBC reported.

Mr. Rajathurai was shot when he was attending a religious function at the Weerasingham hall in the heart of Jaffna, the Lanka Academic reported.

The website quoted eyewitnesses as saying at least four gunmen were the scene, though only one fired the shots. The assassins then fled the scene.

However TamilNet said a lone gunmen shot Rajathurai three times. The website described him as a strong supporter of the EPDP.

The Jaffna peninsula is dominated by the Sri Lankan security forces whose checkpoints and bunker networks crisscross the major towns.

Earlier high profile killings in Jaffna include those of BBC journalist M. Nimalrajan, who was fatally wounded at his home by unidentified gunmen.

The EPDP is blamed for murdering Nimalrajan after his critical reports of the paramilitary group’s electoral malpractices and illegal activitities.

In early August, Superindent of Police Charles Wijewardene was murdered by a mob incensed by the killing of a barber’s salon employee by Sri Lankan troops. The riot in Innuvil was the latest in a series of violent protests by Jaffna esidents protesting the military occupation of the peninsula.

This Wednesday hundreds of students of the College blocked the Jaffna-Point Pedro roads and Kaithady-Urumpirai road at Kopay junction from midday Wednesday and sat in protest, condemning the killing of their principal.

“We demand urgent investigation into our principal’s murder and the perpetrators of the crime identified. Until then we will continue our protest,” a students’ spokesperson said.

They pointed out that there was a team of Sri Lankan Army troopers visiting their school during school hours looking for their principal in his absence before he was gunned down in the evening at his residence.