Kittu (Tamil militant)

Sathasivam Krishnakumar also known as Colonel Kittu was a well-known commander of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The LTTE had significant victories against the Sri Lankan army under Krishnakumar He managed to resist the military successfully with few LTTE cadres. Krishnakumar badly wounded both legs and lost one of it in a grenade attack by rival Tamil group grenade attack and required an artificial limb to be fitted in Britain. In 1990 Britain ordered his deportation, prompting him to seek political asylum in Switzerland. But when it appeared that his request was unlikely to be granted, he left in 1992 for an undisclosed European destination. Despite this, LTTE leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran appointed him to carry the LTTE's ships conrolling leader

After the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, the U.K. authorities served Krishnakumar a quit notice on the grounds that he engaged in extortion of funds from Tamils living in the country. Krishnakumar moved to France, and then to Switzerland, where he said to be lived for a year before boarding the LTTE arms ship m.v. Ahat (also known as Yahata), which was interdicted by the Indian Navy in January 1993. He died in a mid-sea confrontation on January 14.