An unidentified gang raided a TMVP office at Sora Kalmunai in the Samanthurai Police area early on Friday, shot dead the four TMVP cadres guarding it and made away with their guns and ammunition.

The attack was made around 2.30 a.m. When the Samanturai Police visited the TMVP office on hearing of the incident, they had found the bullet riddled bodies of the four youngsters. Sora Kalmunai, where the TMVP office was situated is in the outskirts of Samanturai town.

Police said they were unable to arrive at any conclusion. "It could be internal rivalry that was precipitating within the TMVP during the last few months or it could be even the work of the LTTE", he said.

What the Police meant by internal rivalry was the occasional clashes between the Pillayan group and the Karuna group where each accused the other when incidents of similar nature occurred in the past.

Police spokesman SSP Ranjith Gunasekera, when reminded by The Island that the TMVP was to surrender their arms earlier this week said that he could only say the TMVP cadres were armed at the time of the raid on their office. "Surrendering of arms or not is not our problem. It is a political issue and I am unable to comment on political matters" Gunasekera said.

On a number of occasions earlier TMVP offices had been raided, their cadres killed and weapons removed but after all such incidents no suspects were prosecuted by the Police.

The bodies of the victims have been removed to Kalmunai Hospital and postmortems were due to be performed last evening.