Prabhakaran, the megalomaniac, committed his birthday bloodbath in Nugegoda killing 18 innocent civilians and injuring over 38 others yesterday (November 28). Those cowboy human rights outfits and peace industrialists may remain silent and discard this heinous crime as yet another incident. And those media stooges of LTTE will continue to refer to the crime as just "an explosion" taking great care to drop the word LTTE from their reports. Some of them would even report it as yet another rebellious act of their heroic "Tiger Rebels".

Yet, this time it was not the same. Because Prabhakaran has clearly targeted our schoolchildren in the Nugegoda bomb blast! It may not be clear to foreigners who have little knowledge about our country, but for Sri Lankans it is well known how Nugegoda, in the evenings, is crowded with young school going children .

Nugegoda is the hub of the private sector education service providers in Sri Lanka . There are hundreds of after-school special classes ("Tuition Classes") that draw over tens of thousands of schoolchildren to the town everyday. Usually, the majority of these classes end at 5.30 or 6 in the evening, resulting in thousands of students who flock at the Nugegoda junction where the bomb had been placed. Had the bomb exploded a little later, as intended, but for the confusion that took place when its presence was suspected, an even larger number of schoolchildren would have fallen prey to the explosion. According to the records of the Teaching Hospital, Kalubowila and National Hospital, Colombo, 3 out of 18 victims killed were children while 10 out of 38 wounded are between 5-18 years, and 2 of them are in critical condition. Thus, it is not difficult to understand that the bomb has been carefully timed and located to target the school going children than any other.

Prabhakarn has always taken great pride in his nefarious crimes against soft targets, specially the women and children. From the Kent Farm massacre in 1984 to the Nugegoda bomb blast in 2007, he and his maddened cut-throats have butchered thousands of innocent children in many ethnic cleansing raids and bomb blasts targeting civilians. His great hatred towards women and children is not selective on any racial or religious sentiment at all. He has directed much of his violence against Tamils, than any other race. He has built much of his image as the world's most remorseless terror chief over the violent deaths of thousands of Tamil child soldiers and female suicide cadres.

The most abominable part of the story is how Prabhakaran had created the necessary environment for this cowardly attack during the past two - three weeks. Firstly, in Jaffna his followers had attempted to lure a few Tamil schoolchildren to carry pistols openly while in school uniform. The plan was to use the group of school children as provocateurs to attack a security forces' check point in school uniforms. However, the plan failed as it was exposed to the parents of the children. Again in the Jaffna peninsula the terrorists tried to implicate schoolchildren to stick posters carrying slogans for "suicide bombers day". The plan was also foiled as the students who had received the initial stock of the posters surrendered to the police. The aim was to inflict casualties among schoolchildren in a possible clash between security forces and the children.

Then in Mannar, LTTE took a different step by shelling a government school for Tamil children, and trying to put the blame for it on the Security Forces. As this also backfired, LTTE resorted to a more evil measure by killing 11 people including 7 possible school girls in a roadside bomb blast at a location which is just 15 Km from the main terror base in Kilinochchi. No sooner the explosion took place pro- terror media held the Army's Deep Penetration Unit (DPU) responsible for the attack. The irony in the false accusation is how army soldiers could go so close to the terror-headquarters and carryout an attack on civilians. If there is any basis in the LTTE's argument, our soldiers had gone 50 Km behind the enemy lines with weapons and returned safely after the attack. Surely, the day won't be very far when our brave soldiers reach Kilinochchi, but once they reach, they would look for better opponents than schoolgirls.

The above string of incidents shows nothing other than LTTE's attempt to create a situation to justify in the eyes of the international community its moves to attack southern schoolchildren. The sinister aim of the LTTE was to give the heaviest psychological blow to the Sri Lankan citizens, while avoiding blame for the crime as much as possible. Unfortunately, they appear to have been quite successful. The news broadcasts of all the main networks last night had this angle. In comparing this to the killing of children in Kilinochchi, they were eating off the paw of the Tiger without making any inquiries. What is left to us is to do justice by those killed and to eliminate this brutal terrorist outfit from this soil and to free at least the next generation from such violent deaths. We must do justice by those innocent children who were targeted, killed and gravely injured.

Let those peace industrialists and bogus human rights activist who bellow only for the rights of the terrorists, and thrive on the sufferings of the common people believe they have won the day. Peace and prosperity of the country has always been anathema to these dollar vultures. Let those media stooges of our enemy to continue in their belief that we are just a bunch of dupes who would believe whatever they say about us. It was just the day before yesterday that the superstar TV station gave wide publicity to Prabhakaran "Mahaththaya's" ranting speech to its own viewers. The same media station which does not hesitate to take over the judicial role and pass verdicts against security forces' members, whenever possible, has so far been unable to find the perpetrators of any of the terror attacks against civilians or at the security forces. But, at this important juncture, let them not rob us of our opportunity to rid our motherland form the scourge of terrorism. Let us unite as one nation and stand against terrorism!