COLOMBO: He loathed the peace agreement signed by Sri Lanka and India strongly enough to strike former Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi with a rifle, but today the former Lankan sailor makes a living selling Hindi music.
Naval rating Wijemuni Vijitha Rohana de Silva slid into history 20 years ago today when he struck a heavy blow on Gandhi injuring his shoulder, as the Indian premier inspected a guard of honour in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo.
Now, much of his fire has been doused by the Bollywood tunes that he sells to customers at his shop in a busy shopping centre in the suburbs of Colombo.
"I sell very popular cassettes with Hindi songs," Rohana told the Nation newspaper here."I also enjoy these songs. I am a music lover."
Rohana was court-martialled and sentenced to six years in prison but he was released after two years of serving his term by former President Ranasinghe Premadasa, a strong criticof the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord entered into by his predecessor Junius Jayewardene on July 29, 1987.
The agreement brought Indian troops to Sri Lanka in August 1987 to quell Tamil separatism. Many Sri Lankans opposed the accord fearing it had been forced on Sri Lanka and would lead to greater Indian military involvement.
The anniversary of the signing of the agreement, which fell on Sunday, was marked in a low-key manner with troops engaged in an upsurge of fighting against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in recent months.
Rohana was a trooper stationed in the northern port of Karainagar, who saw six of his colleagues blown up by a Tamil rebel bomb. He said he was enraged that India had helped the Tamil Tiger separatists and had wanted to insult the Indian premier.
He claims he had nothing against Gandhi personally nor did he want to extract revenge from the Indian people.
"I only protested against Gandhi for helping the LTTE," he said, adding he had sent his condolences to Gandhi's family when the former Indian premier was assassinated in 1991 by a suspected LTTE suicide bomber.
Gandhi was assassinated by a Tiger suicide bomber in 1991.
