COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, March 1 (UPI) -- Gunmen shot and killed an election candidate Monday in Sri Lanka, the civil-war torn island nation preparing for general elections next month.
Police said gunmen attacked Sinnathamby Sunderapillai, a minority Tamil candidate, in a hospital in Batticaloa in northern Sri Lanka, where he was recovering from injuries suffered in an earlier attack, the BBC reported.
The Tamil Tigers has been spearheading the decades-old civil war for a separate Tamil state in the northern district.
Though a Tamilian, Sunderapillai was a candidate from Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe's United National Party.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the killing.
The Tamil Tigers are not contesting the elections but are backing proxy candidates in a moderate Tamil grouping.
Sri Lanka President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who heads the People's Alliance party, called the elections set for April 2.
She has been locked in a feud with Premier Wickramasinghe, whom she accuses of yielding too much ground to the Tamil Tigers.
A record 6,024 candidates will be contesting for the 225 seats in the elections.
