Daya Master

Velayutham Dayanidhi ( Vēlāyutam Tayāniti; born 3 March 1954; commonly known as Daya Master) was a leading member and media spokesman for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist Tamil militant organisation in Sri Lanka.

Early life and family Dayanidhi was born on 3 March 1954 in Kilinochchi in northern Ceylon. He hails from Thambasiddy near Point Pedro. He worked as private tutor of English language and acquired the name Daya Master. They have a daughter.

After suffering a heart attack Daya Master was admitted to the private Apollo Hospital in Colombo on 13 July 2006 to undergo an angiogram. He was transported from Kilinochchi to Colombo with military escort in the Mitsubishi Montero belonging to UPFA provincial minister Ananda Sarath Kumara Rathnayake. The Sinhalese nationalist National Movement Against Terrorism staged a protest outside the hospital on 14 July 2006, demanding Daya Master's arrest. Daya Master was discharged on 15 July 2006. He returned to Kilinochchi, escorted by the Sri Lankan military and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM). It was reported that the SLMM had paid the hospital bill. The SLMM denied the reports. Bopitigoda was released on 26 August 2006.

Daya Master and his colleague George Master surrendered to the Sri Lankan military at Puthumatalan on 20 April 2009, just days before the civil war ended with the defeat of the LTTE. The two men were arrested and taken to Colombo. After being "rehabilitated" the two men were sent to jail. After the end of the war in May 2009 Daya Master and Karuna Amman were flown to Puthumatalan by the Sri Lankan military to identify the body of LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran.

Daya Master and George Master were detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) but were not charged. They were released on bail by Colombo Chief Magistrate Nishantha Hapuarachchi in September 2009 after the CID claimed that there wasn't any evidence to prosecute the two men under the PTA. One of the bail conditions was that they both had to report to CID headquarters in Colombo once a month but this condition was relaxed in February 2010 after which they only had to report to the CID office in Jaffna.

Later life Daya Master then started working on the news desk for Dish Asia Network (DAN TV), a somewhat pro-government broadcaster based in northern Sri Lanka owned and operated by one-time Minister of the Mahinda Rajapaksa Cabinet- Douglas Devananda.

In April 2013 Daya Master announced that he would contest the upcoming elections to Northern Provincial Council as a candidate for the governing United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA). It was reported that the UPFA was considering Daya Master to be its chief ministerial candidate.