South India hunt for fleeing Tamil Tiger rebels

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India – Heavily armed commandos locked down a stretch of the southern Indian coast today and began a house-to-house search for a group of suspected Tamil Tiger rebels from Sri Lanka, police said.

Jacob Punnoose, police chief of Kerala state, told Reuters the police had information that Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels were trying to flee impending defeat at the hands of Sri Lankan troops in their bloody 25-year civil war.

Indian police and special commandos surrounded Thykkal village, close to the teeming coastal city of Kochi, suspecting that the rebels had landed there in a small boat, he said.

"The area is thickly populated. We are not allowing any person or vehicle from the village to move out," Punnoose said by phone from Thykkal, where he was monitoring the operation.

"All houses in the area are being searched. So far we have not got any trace of the fishing boat or the men."

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