Sri Lankan police have arrested the mayor of the northern city of Jaffna, accusing him of promoting the defunct LTTE and the group’s ideology, as per a report in Colombopage. 

Mannivannan Visvalingam, the mayor of Jaffna Municipality, was taken into custody for deploying five persons in a uniform similar to the one used by the LTTE, a spokesperson of the Sri Lankan police was quoted as saying by Colombopage. The mayor will be handed over to the Terrorism Investigation Division, he informed.

LTTE, a defunct ethnic Tamil armed group, had waged a three-decade-long brutal insurgency in the island nation, seeking a separate homeland nation in the northeastern part. For many years, the group dominated and controlled Tamil-majority Jaffna. 

The group was later designated as a terrorist organization by many countries, including Sri Lanka and India. 

During the investigation, it was revealed that the mayor recruited and deployed five persons for official duties in that uniform. Statements of eyewitnesses, including the municipality commissioner, were also recorded. 

Last month, the Sri Lankan government had announced that they would arrest anyone promoting the ideology of the LTTE. However, the group, despite being militarily crushed by Sri Lankan forces more than a decade ago, still enjoys sympathy in the northern area of the island nation.