In the wake of the forthcoming presidential election, the Tigers could adopt new methods to assassinate politicians, said army spokesman Brig. Gamini Rathnayake. He urged the public to keep an eye open for suspicious characters at political meetings.

He said the garlanding of politicians and lighting of fire crackers at political meetings could endanger the lives of politicians as the LTTE could exploit such situations to assassinate them as they did in the past. Indian Prime Ministerial candidate Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by the LTTE using a garland. In Sri Lanka, during previous presidential election campaign, the LTE used fire crackers distract the attention of the security to enable their suicide bombers to strike.