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COLOMBO, Dec 25 (AP): Unidentified gunmen shot and killed pro-rebel legislator Joseph Pararajasingham as he attended midnight Mass at a church in eastern Sri Lanka, the Defence Ministry said Sunday, sparking fears of a return to civil war in the island nation.
The attackers fired at Pararajasingham, 71, during the Christmas service at St. Michael's Church in Batticaloa, the site of frequent skirmishes between rebel factions, military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe said.
Pararajasingham's wife, Sugunam, and eight others, were injured in the shooting and are being treated in hospital. Pararajasingham's bodyguards returned fire, but it was not known if any of the assailants were wounded.
A police officer in Batticaloa, eastern Sri Lanka's main town, said the lawmaker died on the spot after two assailants fired four shots into his chest.
Pararajasingham, a former part-time journalist, represented the Tamil National Alliance, a proxy party of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which has been fighting the government for two decades for a Tamil homeland for Sri Lanka's 3.2 million ethnic Tamil minority.
A pro-rebel Web site reported the incident without comment. There was no claim of responsibility, but a breakaway faction of the rebels is known to oppose the Alliance.
Batticaloa was the scene of several bloody battles between the rebels after a powerful eastern commander and his followers split from the main insurgency group last year.
The uprising was ruthlessly suppressed by the main rebel group, but sympathy for the breakaway leader - known as Karuna - remains strong among Tamils in the east.
The Tigers also accuse the Sri Lankan military of backing Karuna's faction, an accusation the military denies.
The shooting came as envoys from Japan, Britain, Norway and the European Union - key backers of Sri Lanka's peace process - met with the rebels' political leader, S. P. Thamilselvan, Saturday in the northern guerrilla stronghold of Kilinochchi to raise concerns about the growing violence.
On Saturday, one soldier and five rebels died in a battle in the Jaffna Peninsula, the military said. The day before, 13 members of Sri Lanka's navy traveling in a bus were killed in an ambush.
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