Heroic historical memories of Lt. Col. Visu – Commander of the Intelligence Department’s Assault Brigade.
Heroic historical memories of Lt. Col. Visu – Commander of the Intelligence Department’s Assault Brigade.
Lt. Col. Visu
Nagarasa Kulendran
Tamileelam: Yarlpanam District
Birth: 23.03.1966
Death: 27.09.1998
1987 was a year with many historical events such as the Sri Lanka-India Agreement, the arrival of the Indian Army. Protecting the presence, protecting the leadership, protecting the structure, protecting the resources while fighting the enemy. As the saying goes, ‘You have to protect the eye, you have to protect the eyelid’ and at the same time you must see.
‘Kalmadu’, ‘Ramanathapuram’; These are small villages in Kilinochchi district.
Those villages, which were full of ‘resources’ for the life of the people without new scientific advances, including forests on one side and reservoirs and human settlements on the other, were delighted by the arrival of the LTTE. The LTTE were rightly called “Engadai Podiyal” by some people and “Perisu” by others. The locals called Visu “Chinna Visu”.
The Indian soldiers somehow managed to sniff out the LTTE’s movements. However, Visu was one of the few fighters who “showed the Indian soldiers the way to water” and took food and other essential items to their teams in the forest.
To take a batch of supplies, one would have to fight several battles with the Indian soldiers. Sometimes, after several battles, the supplies would be lost. Moreover, many lives would have to be paid for it.
One day Visu received information from the banks of the Nethaliya River that a group of sixty women was running out of food. Having obtained a bullock cart from a supporter in Ramanathapuram, James and another fighter loaded the food into the cart and traveled a long distance through the forest. When they approached the base of the women fighters, the women fighters had abandoned their base knowing that the Indian soldiers had descended into the forest to attack the base. Those who had entered the base understood the matter. Visu, who had gone to the well, was aware of the impending disaster by the sound of breaking trees and the screams of monkeys. Visu, who understood the situation said, “James, come here. Please unload the things you have brought with you and start cooking.” James, who clearly understood the hidden meaning in Visu’s speech, started walking towards the cart. Then the three of them reached the cart. The Indian soldiers who were monitoring their movements started following the van. All three of them knew this very well. They wanted to somehow protect the food they had brought amidst many hardships. “Follow us, brother, don’t shoot us now. Their aim is to know our location.” said Visu, “Leave the van and escape,” said James. The other fighters also stopped in the van to support it.
The Indian soldiers’ guns started to ‘rattle’. The three of them got off and ran to one side while firing. In the meantime, Visu changed course into the forest. When James and the other fighters climbed under the tank, Visu did not. Two days later, Visu climbed alone in a small village in the Mullaithivu jungle. When they met again, Visu said, “I can’t trust you, brother. I have to trust my G-3 rifle.” Visu kissed his rifle. “Just two, brother.”
Another day, in the month of May 1988, Indian soldiers ambushed and attacked a LTTE fighter at the Kokkavil junction connecting the old Kandy road, and his leg was broken. Could they be taken by road in an ‘ambulance’? No. The only way to break the path was through the forest. If a person with a broken leg was to be given immediate treatment, he had to go to Vattakachchi. On the way, another person might even ‘break his leg’ somewhere else. Even if they went there, it was difficult to bring a doctor. The Indian army kept every local doctor under their surveillance.
The one who gave his shoulder, sometimes gave his life, the one who fought for his friend even though he was on the run. “I’m staying with him.” “You go and get a doctor,” said Visu. Leaving Visu with his G-3 rifle and the wounded fighter. his comrades moved through the forest.
Someone had betrayed. That day, the entire village was surrounded. Visu and the wounded fighter lay in a small hut, hiding themselves with their clothes. The ‘smell’ of the Indian soldiers stung his nose. The ‘beedi smoke’ made his stomach sick. “Brother, don’t let me bear the pain anymore,” said the wounded fighter. Visu begged for his cyanide and kept it with him. “After the bullets in my G-3 are gone, you can bite the bottle,” Visu said.
They tried to avoid being caught by the Indian army. The Indian troops abandoned the encirclement and returned to the base at night. As nightfall made it difficult to assess the situation, in the morning, their eyes told their fellow fighters who had come with the doctor about the pain they had suffered throughout the day. James, who was with Visu at the base during this period, recalled, “When we were learning to swim in the sea, we felt a sense of security, just as if a boat were coming towards us, when Visu came with us… We all fought well. But the thought of when we could put the cyanide bottle in our mouths kept running like waves in our minds. Visu would fight with wisdom and more endurance, trusting himself and his gun, and with the feeling that ‘we are fighting to win’,” he said with a soft smile.
The arrival of the LTTE in those villages and their activities had attracted many new recruits to join the LTTE. The Indian forces would be alerted if they stayed in one place for at least five days. Visu was given the responsibility of giving basic training to thirty new recruits and turning them into fighters. Weapons training, political education, and basic needs were all in Visu’s hands.
The time for the new recruits to finish their training was approaching. “Indian forces are going to descend into the jungle again,” a message quickly arrived. “Is setting up a base such an easy task? No, the pain of carrying soil from the well has not yet left my spine. The burdens of carrying things in the forest are not comfortable. Anyway, we must prevent the enemy’s movement. Or at least we have to know that the enemy is approaching us.” Thinking, Visu remembered the landmines of ‘Joni’ who came from the Manalaru forest.
On August 26, 1988, he called some new fighters and said, “Take the landmines and bury them.” He had walked a specified distance with his new fighter team through the forest paths, expecting that the enemy might come. “Let it be a training exercise for you. At the same time, let it be the first trap you lay for the enemy,” Visu told the new fighters, standing nearby and observing the landmine being planted.
When Shivam, who had buried a landmine, got up after disguising it, he tripped on a tree root and accidentally fell on the landmine he had hidden. “I am a dangerous friend,” the landmine said. When he knew that Shivam was about to fall on the landmine, Visu, who was about to catch Shivam, was torn to pieces just below his right elbow. All the fingers on his left hand were shattered. There were wounds all over his body. While Shivam was fighting for his life, one of the men who escaped unharmed ran to the base and was returning with his comrades. He looked at his comrades and started saying, ‘I don’t have both hands, brother’, ‘I don’t have both hands, brother’ in a semi-conscious manner. He didn’t show any pain on his face. Could it be that there was no pain in his heart?
Forty kilometers away a group of LTTE fighters had set out from Kalmadu with their wounded comrades towards the North Marathi coastal border. A fighter was walking quickly ahead, carrying a thin bandage on his body.
The ‘Tamil Nadu’ surgeries were over, and the day came to untie the bandages on his hands. The doctor had cut the area between the thumb and ring finger of his fingerless left hand and created something like a finger. “Doctor, you must create a finger for me somehow,” he asked the doctor.
In the middle of 1989, he saw the leaves of that palm tree again. The day he would reunite with all that had separated him, he looked at the finger he had created for himself once again, “I have to do so much for the country.” The palm trees were fully visible. “Can you raise Visu?” asked a fighter from a boat that had reached the shore. “I can”, he said and stepped ashore. That palm tree and the endless waves of the sea must have associated him with them.
Again, in the Vanni, Visu was assigned to a combat unit at a base codenamed 3.7. Here, he would have thanked the doctor once again. In 1990, when the national leader, felt the need to institutionalize the intelligence operations of the LTTE, Visu was among the team selected for the purpose.
In June 1990, when the Second Eelam War began, the Sinhalese forces cut off the land connection between Yarlpanam and Vanni at Aanayiravu. When the Kompadi road was the only connection to Vanni, Visu was responsible for the transportation and material exchange work of the intelligence fighters. During this period, when the intelligence officer asked him to take charge of an intelligence operation, he said, “I will not go to war, sir. I am not good at intelligence work.” When the intelligence officer said about Visu’s state of mind, “Visu’s intelligence was natural. His faith was even greater. But why did he not take more interest in intelligence work? This is a mystery to me. He must have realized how important intelligence work is if we are to win our liberation war. However, since he was in the field of combat, his decision was correct,” he said.
Knowing Visu’s state of mind, the officer in charge began giving Visu tasks related to the battlefield. When the LTTE decided to launch a ‘Thavalai Paychal’ operation on the Poonagari Army and Navy bases on November 11th 1993, Visu was assigned to an operational area that would carry out the supply operation.
That day, his boat was rushing along the water. Suddenly, an enemy ‘Pukkara’ aircraft appeared in the sky and quickly swooped down on the boat. Everyone jumped into the water and started swimming. The boat was sinking. Visu was struggling with hope to reach the shore with his missing hands. His ‘Gol Commando’ was separating from him in the water. Captain Vannan was struggling with the current and losing. Will Visu come? ‘Oh Visu doesn’t have hands to swim’. Even though his heart was breaking, and the fish were floating in the ocean, he reached the shore at dusk.
Then he was given yet another new task. “Business is“ fifty percent money profit, fifty percent intelligence profit. It was a new job that he had never seen in his life of struggle. While his sloppy, half-sleeved shirt, and growing beard showed him as a businessman, his skinny body and severed hands showed him as a fighter.
A worker who worked with Visu during this period recalled, “This man of a certain character would not accept any help we gave him for his personal needs. One day I poured water into the toilet. He poured the water down and said angrily, “Work for the movement for the salary you are paying. I have hands. You are the ones who keep reminding me that I don’t have hands.” After that, I never did any work for him. If I started doing anything like that, he would start cutting me off.”
During this period, Visu was suffering from the grief of losing his weapon, the ‘Gol Commando’, in Kalali Neereri, and he searched everywhere for its spare parts to assemble a Gol Commando. “Brother, you don’t even have hands, why are you carrying a weapon?” A fighter asked an unthinkable question. “Hey, no matter what, we must fight to capture the country. Even after capturing the country, we will need to start over”, the general rule of ‘strength is the only way to survive’ resonated with Visu’s feelings.
On June 05, during the Jayasikuru attack of the Sinhalese forces towards Vilkuvaithakulam, Visu was engaged in rear-field work, and received a message from the intelligence officer, Major Kutty, “Take charge of the intelligence brigade.”
When Visu took charge of the squad, he had another huge responsibility in front of him, in addition to the responsibility of preventing the enemy’s massive movement. Fighters who were only skilled in intelligence. Their only qualification was ‘courage’. The other teams had fighters who had more combat experience due to their continuous presence in the battlefields.
Visu also understood the other important responsibility of laying a solid foundation for his team and giving them a solid role in the battlefields. He started every little thing to lay the foundation for a good troop, as the leader said. Visu also had a shovel in his hands. That shovel was also doing its best.
1997 December 03 Visu’s teams were shifted to the Mannarkulam area following the possibility of the enemy moving through the Mannarkulam area. Visu had divided one team into two, with the dam of the pond on the right side of the road as a security fence and another team on the left side of the road (Kanagarayankulam area). The Malathy battalion was stationed across the road. The next day, December 4, 1997, as the sun was rising, the Sinhalese Special Commando team had advanced about a kilometer along the Mannarkulam road. “Our first phase of operations has been completed. We are going to move onto the Kandy road.” A Sinhalese commander was announcing to his command post.
Only one guard post remained uncaptured within the enemy-infiltrated area. Major Nilampuri, who was in that guard post, was standing alone and fighting the enemy. “Sandiliya, I am Visu. Recapture the broken guard posts and link up with the other teams.” “One guard post has not been captured. One of our fighters is standing alone and fighting. Look and shoot.” Visu was giving orders to the teams moving ahead.
“On the other hand, the training given by the American “Green Beret” brigade to the Sinhalese 53rd Brigade commandos, did not help in the face of LTTE. The commandos, who were running around inside a stone house, found that the stone house became a graveyard. The Sinhalese commanders replied, “We are sending troops to help,” but the troops never arrived.
The shrapnel of the shell that came from somewhere injured Visu’s shoulder and leg. The voice of the assistant commander Arivu began to be heard on the walkie-talkie. Together with the other teams that came to help, all the guards who had been captured by the enemy were recaptured. At the end of the nine-hour encounter, the 53rd Sinhala Brigade had lost four hundred of its elite commandos. That day was an unforgettable day not only for the Sinhala Commander Sirilal Weerasuriya, but also for the famous 53rd Sinhala Brigade.
“Arivu, we have washed away the shame of losing the G.P.M.G. to the enemy at the Lamphuvaithakulam with our blood,” Visu told Arivu in the hospital.
Life in the army again. The rain had also intensified its impact. “If you dig a bunker, you must get wet. Is it because of sweat or rain? The weather will decide. ”A fighter who was soaked to the bone was saying. Those children of our mothers who used to apply powder to their heads in childhood and smoke incense thinking that even the moisture would not dry out, were getting wet for the motherland without even a small cloth to wipe their heads. Visu would also dry it. He would get wet. He would struggle without a small cloth to wipe his head, even without hands.
From the position of company manager, Visu was appointed by the command post as the complete in-charge of the Mangula area. From being ordered to protect only a few barricades, he was given the responsibility of protecting several kilometers of the barricades from being breached by the enemy. He became a general in-charge.
On June 5, 1998, that night, traces of an enemy spy entering the dummy point set up in the barricades protected by the Intelligence Division Brigade, which was returning towards Olumadu in an ‘L’ shape, were found. The matter was immediately reported to Visu. “Be careful. He will try to enter it anyway”.
“1998 June 06. In broad daylight. That one minute of indifference may be the time when the enemy will come looking for you. They understood what the leader said that day with great understanding. The fake guard was in the center of the trench that was being moved in a web. The enemy had lost an opportunity. If you go a certain distance and stand in the curved area and raise your gun, the enemy’s gun will start to fire. The enemy was fighting fiercely. Orders were coming from Visu to Arivu. The situation on the field was favorable to the fighters. It was a difficult task for the enemy to escape from the LTTE’s gunfire at the time of the battle.
That thirty-minute battle also took an important place in the history of the Jayasikuru Battle.
The Jayasikuru forces had already missed the deadline of the Defence Minister, who had set a date of February 4, 1998, to capture Kandy Road and establish a supply line for the Sinhalese forces in Yarlpanam. The Sinhalese forces were struggling to capture even the town of Mangulam.
When the day was set to recapture Kilinochchi, where the Sinhalese forces were to move, Visu’s team was also engaged in training for the purpose. The Kilinochchi Sinhalese base had a perimeter of approximately 20 kilometers. It was a large base that included the Kandy Road, a guard post every thirty meters, mobile trenches, barbed wire fences, and more than sixteen mini camps, all of which were guarded by the famous 54th Division of the Sinhalese.
“If we want to destroy this base, we must block the supply route of the base. If we want to block the supply route, we must cut Kandy Road in the Paranthan area.
The teams led by Colonel (Brigadier) Balraj had taken charge of cutting Kandy Road. They had to send his teams to Kandy Road and break the road. The task of breaking the road and blocking it was given to the Intelligence Brigade led by Visu.
‘Oyaatha Alaigal – 2′ On September 27, 1998, at 01.20 in the morning, a torpedo exploded, and the barbed wire fence was cut. The teams that entered by removing the barbed wire fences, one team led by Visu, went to the right side (on the depot roadside) and another team led by Arivu, went to the left side (Paranthan area). In just ten minutes the obstacles were broken and the barbed wire fences, one kilometer long, were broken to the right and a path was opened. The team that was cutting up the Kandy Street had done its job properly
The foundation was crumbling due to the LTTE units’ shelling from all four directions. Visu’s team, which had advanced through the trenches, had also captured the guardhouse next to the apartment building near the Uduthirapuram Street.
The time was 1.30 in the afternoon. The fatigue of fighting all night on the first day was visible on the faces of every fighter. Visu was inside a guardhouse. The enemy’s bullets were ricocheting off the guardhouse. A bullet ricocheted through the guardhouse and pierced Visu’s chest. Visu sensed what was about to happen at that moment. He handed his Col Commando rifle to the fighter standing nearby. “Brother, don’t let him take the places he captured, let him know the situation.” While he was standing there, his body slowly…. The young man stopped without hearing the news of the successful destruction of that army base.
What do you think of the sudden end? What can I do, his life was also put to an end as a series of signs. When he took charge of the team in the illuminated pond, the satisfaction of having completed the two responsibilities before him was visible on his face. That match that had worked for freedom for fifteen years has lit its light and disappeared. A knowledge center has arisen in the intelligence department for those who admire him in his name. He is carried in the Vanni as the son of Alankulam Thuyilumillam.
The next generation will also breathe your breath, your history will remain in the river of time as the history of Tamils forever.
“Comrade, for those who stand in the face of death, even after death, the only thing that is certain is victory of the goal”.
Memory Sharing:- C. Mathula
Liberation Tigers – Karthigai 2002
“The Thirst of Tigers is the homeland Tamileelam”
(Translation by Tamilpriya)
Heroic historical memories of Lt. Col. Visu
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