Vaithilingam Sornalingam

Vaithilingam Sornalingam (September 1949 – 26 September 2001; , alternative spellings include Vythilingam Sornalingam; often referred to by his nom de guerre Colonel Shankar) was the founder of the air wing and marine division of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and a relative of the militant group's leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

He was educated in Sri Lanka, and worked for some time in Canada before returning to Sri Lanka and joining the LTTE.

Early life Sornalingam was born in September 1949, the second of six sons. He studied at the Tamil Maha Vidyalayam in Vanni

He then went on to the Hindustan Institute of Engineering Technology in Chennai, where he studied aeronautical engineering. Some time after completing his studies, he moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where he worked for Air Canada; while there, he was known to have become involved with the LTTE as early as 1973.

Though he did not formally become a member of the LTTE at that time, he assisted in setting up their Office of Overseas Purchases, which was responsible for acquiring communications equipment, ships, radar, and armaments.

Death Sornalingam was killed by a claymore mine on 26 September 2001 at around 10:45 AM in the jungle near Vanni, while driving alone from Oddusuddan to Puthukkudiyiruppu.

Sornalingam's killing was part of a series of attempts around the same time on the lives of LTTE leaders, including Gangai Amaran and S. P. Thamilselvan.

An LTTE press release a few hours after his death attributed the attack to a special deep penetration unit of the Sri Lankan army, and claimed that the date of his killing had been chosen deliberately to coincide with the anniversary of the death of Thileepan, who had died 14 years earlier in a hunger strike protesting the policies of the Sri Lankan government and the Indian Peace Keeping Force.

Government newspapers denied the LTTE's charges and instead attributed the attacks to an alleged internal power struggle in the LTTE.