
An admired female LTTE leader killed in battle
Lt Col Selvy hailed from Jaffna and joined the LTTE in 1995 prior to the mass displacement from Jaffna in that year. She was following an undergraduate course at the Jaffna University when she joined the LTTE.
 Even her seniors within the LTTE feared her for her stringent adherence to rules and the extreme austere life that she led and expected others in the movement to lead. To her subordinates she was the counselor who could be approached with any kind of problems. Yet they too feared her for her absolute honesty. There were rare instances in her life as a leader of a frontline unit where she dared to disobey orders of her seniors that she clearly perceived as unwise. At her funeral her seniors expressed their respect for her decisions of this type. Lt Col Selvy loved learning the Tamil language in all its manifestations. Lately, she eagerly grasped an opportunity to learn the oldest text on Tamil grammar, Tholhapiyam. It was one her last regrets that she could not dedicate herself to this task since her duties at the frontline made this very difficult. Her ability with the language gave her a valued skill to enthuse the women fighters. She had the ability to ease the tension and make people laugh with her language skills. She could use her knowledge of ancient Tamil literature to cite poems war and bravery with relevance to the situation in hand which often made her fighting unit shake out of the pressures they were facing. Lt Col Selvy was killed on 25 May at the age of 38 in a frontline battle at the Mannar FDL.
31 May 2008
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