By M.R. Narayan Swamy
When Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillaiyaan was first told that his former aide Azad Maulana was planning to stir up some trouble from Europe, the former’s instant reaction was: “Really? What could it be about?”
Pillaiyaan, a former chief minister of Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province, could only recall the mountain of difficulties Mohammed Hanzeer Mohammed Mihilar, alias Maulana, had been in due to his own family problems.
The Amparai-born Maulana had apparently married twice, not telling the second wife that he was already wedded. When the truth emerged, some members of his first wife reportedly assaulted Maulana.
At one point, unable to face his angry wives and a police investigation that followed, Maulana unburdened himself to Pillaiyaan in the hope that the latter could wield his influence to get him out of trouble.
Maualana may have expected this favour from Pillaiyaan since he was his personal secretary and a media spokesperson – and a confidant too.
Pillaiyaan, a former Tamil Tiger who was chief minister from May 2008 to September 2012 and, much later, a minister in Colombo, however politely distanced himself from Maulana’s personal issues.
But friends did suggest that Maulana could leave Sri Lanka for a while until the situation improved for him.
Maulana found this a sensible idea. In 2021, he made his way to India and later to Europe.
Maulana counted on sympathisers in European countries to help. Most of them were former Tamil militants who had an affinity for him since his late father, Mohammed Aliyar Mohammed Mihilar, had been with a Tamil militant group.
Although a Muslim, Aliyar Mihilar joined the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) in the early 1980s.
Known as Kamalan in the EPRLF, he died on June 19, 1990, when the Tamil Tigers gunned down EPRLF leader K. Pathmanabha and 12 associates in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
Maulana was around seven years old at that time. Since then, he has loathed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Both because of his father’s political past and due to his own inclinations, Maulana developed a rapport with several Tamil militants and former militants from various non-LTTE groups.
It was a former EPRLF leader who is said to have introduced the multi-lingual Maulana – proficient in Tamil, Sinhala, and English – to the mono-lingual Pillaiyan.
Once he became an aide to Pillaiyan, a former child soldier who rebelled against the LTTE in 2004, Maulana rose rapidly, so much so that this caused some jealousy in Pillaiyan’s Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Katchi (TMVK) party.
Pillaiyaan’s fortunes swung after he ceased to be the chief minister. He was arrested in 2015 after being blamed for the 2005 murder of a Tamil MP in Batticaloa. He spent five years in prison without bail.
He was elected to parliament from inside the prison in 2020, and then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa made him a state minister in his government.
This was the time Maulana was battling his personal troubles. And in 2021, he left Sri Lanka.
From Tamil Nadu, Maulana telephoned some Tamil friends in Europe, telling them he was headed their way and would need their help to start a new life.
One such person he contacted was Gnanam Stalin (nee Gnanasekaran), a former member of the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOT) who is now in his 60s.
Gnanam, who had quit Sri Lanka in 1990 and moved over to Europe after a brief stay in India, became close to Pillaiyaan and others in the TMVP after their split from the LTTE – because of their common eastern Sri Lankan identity.
In that capacity, Gnanam developed a good relationship with Maulana, too. They met many times. Maulana, who had visited Gnanam’s house twice in France, told him that he would be getting a six-month UN project in Geneva.
But the Paris-based Gnanam recalls that Maulana never contacted him in France in 2021, although he had promised to.
Gnanam kept wondering what could have happened until he got a call about a month later from another former Tamil militant, who had been with the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), in Switzerland.
The Swiss Tamil stunned Gnanam by saying that Maulana was preparing to say something nasty about Pillaiyaan and that he also appeared to be eager to make some money.
Gnanam wasted no time. He called Pillaiyaan, who was equally astonished.
Pillaiyaan, Gnanam recalls, could not think of anything beyond Maulana’s marital woes.
Since Maulana had teamed up with Pillaiyaan only after the latter quit the Tigers and embraced mainstream politics, Pillaiyaan could not think of what his former aide could be scheming about.
This, Gnanam said in a telephonic interview, was extremely crucial.
“Later, when Maulana’s shocking statements became public knowledge, I could connect none of it to Pillaiyaan,” he said, referring to Maulana’s claims that Pillaiyaan and Sri Lankan intelligence officer Suresh Sallay were linked to the 2019 Easter bombings in Sri Lanka, which killed over 260 people and injured hundreds.
“If Pillaiyaan was linked to the Eastern bombings, even indirectly, he would have shuddered the moment I told him about Maulana’s intentions. Nothing like that happened,” Gnanam said.
Maulana claimed in his Channel 4 television interview that it was Pillaiyaan, while in jail, who told him in January 2018 to introduce Islamist Zahran Hashim to Sallay, who has been in detention since February this year.
Maulana said he did that. And that Zahran and Sallay met at a coconut grove in February 2019. Their meeting reportedly lasted some three hours.
Maulana says he did not attend the meeting but stood outside. Sallay is said to have told him later that the Rajapaksa brothers (Mahinda and Gotabaya) wanted an “unsafe situation” in Sri Lanka so that they could return to power.
Once the Eastern horror took place in April 2019, Maulana says he met Pillaiyaan again. The latter reportedly told him to keep quiet about Zahran, leader of the Sri Lankan affiliate of the Islamic State, who was among the suicide bombers killed in the bombings.
While seeking asylum in Europe, Maulana said his conscience would no longer allow him to keep mum.
Ex-Tamil militants scattered in Europe say Maulana’s claims are unbelievable.
“Of course, Pillaiyaan knew some of these Islamists simply because he was in jail along with them. He had no sympathy for their extremist Sunni ideology,” Gnanam said. “In fact, there were clashes in the prison between these Muslims and some Tamils. Pillaiyaan has written about it in his book.”
Maulana’s own account establishes that although the Easter attack took place in 2019, he did not tell the authorities in Sri Lanka what he later claimed he knew.
On the contrary, Maulana only discussed his problems vis-à-vis his two wives with Pillaiyaan.
The ex-militants’ surmise is simple: Pillaiyaan never told Maulana to introduce anyone to Sallay. On that basis, nothing else that Maualana claims can be true.
The former militants, who themselves know well how Sri Lankan security forces operate, said it is unbelievable that Sallay, a veteran intelligence officer, needed help from Pillaiyaan or Maulana to meet Zahran – assuming he wanted to meet the Islamist.
“The reality is that many of these Islamists were known to the Sri Lankan military intelligence,” said one Tamil source without wanting to be identified by name. “The military used them against the LTTE in the (island’s) east. Sallay headed the military intelligence. He wanted an introduction to one of these men? Unbelievable, completely unbelievable.”
Another former militant, who was once with the EPRLF, said he could not digest the claim that an experienced intelligence officer like Sallay would blurt out to Maulana a supposed grand plan behind the Easter conspiracy.
Former militants who either met or were scheduled to meet Maulana in Europe are convinced that someone, or a group of people, helped him concoct a story that would strengthen his asylum claim in Europe while at the same time implicating individuals who had long opposed or challenged the LTTE.
“As a Muslim, he could not have claimed that he was ethnically oppressed,” one of them said.
The ex-militants made it clear they have no love for the Islamists who unleashed terror on Easter day, or for that matter, Sallay or even Pillaiyaan.
If Maulana is to be believed, there must be concrete evidence to support his assertions, they said. Until then, his account will remain a claim made in pursuit of asylum in Europe.
