(From top) Prabhakaran’s room in the underground bunker, a soldier inspects a bottle at the complex, a security official looks at an insulin container next to a picture of the LTTE chief and soldiers examine vents at the hideout. (AFP)

Colombo, Feb. 3 (PTI): An air-conditioned underground bunker, which is believed to have been the home of LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, was unearthed by Sri Lankan troops in Mullaitivu yesterday, the defence ministry said.

The hideout was found after a similar facility was discovered in the former rebel bastion of Kilinochchi.

The two-storied residential complex was located on two acres full of coconut trees and was well protected, ministry officials said today. Sri Lankan Light Infantry troops captured the hideout yesterday, they added.

The entire area was seized by the army after heavy fighting between troops and the Tigers since early yesterday. At least 20 Tigers were killed in the fighting, the officials said.

According to sources, the underground bunker is 50 feet deep and is protected by a 3-foot, thick layer of concrete. The air force had previously bombed the location. The complex is 500 metres west of the Paranthan-Mullaitivu main road in Piramanthalkulama.

The airconditioned bunker comprised four furnished rooms with tiled floors. Surveillance cameras were fitted at the entrance of the complex, the sources said.

During search operations, troops also found an oxygen plant inside a room that belonged to Prabhakaran. They found an M-16 machine gun and an insulin container. The room also had a freezer.

“Four guard points were found located adjacent to the compartment which were manned by Prabakaran’s personal bodyguards,” a military official said.

Three sound-proof power generators were used to supply electricity to the residence and the adjacent bunkers, the sources said.

“The suspicion of Prabhakaran frequenting the place was further strengthened by the fact that the troops came across an expensive shirt that may have belonged to the terrorist leader,” the army said. Several oxygen tanks were also recovered.

In the third week of January, Lankan forces captured one of Prabhakaran’s command bunkers in the forests of Dharmapuram in Mullaitivu.

The bunker, though camouflaged as an ordinary peasant hut, had all the trappings of command headquarters.

It had been built inside a civilian settlement among the houses of poor villagers.

At the entrance of the bunker, an armour-plated container with an air-conditioning plant was found.

Prabhakaran, who founded the LTTE in 1976, is known to have deep and secure underground bunkers in Mullaittivu’s dense forests.

Hospital attacked

Lankan civilians fled a packed hospital in the war zone after artillery shells hit it for the fourth time in two days, killing at least three people and wounding 10, the Red Cross said today.

That brings the death toll in the two days of shelling at the hospital in the northern area of Puthikudiyiruppu to 12, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Puthukudiyiruppu is inside the small wedge of jungle where Sri Lanka’s surging military has surrounded the Tigers.

“The fourth shell struck on Monday evening at 6:45 p.m. for the second day running. At least three people were killed and at least 10 people were injured,” said Sarasi Wijeratne, an ICRC spokeswoman in Colombo. The Red Cross says at least nine people were killed in shelling on Sunday.