Started in 1972 as Tamil New Tigers by a group of young boys headed by him and renamed as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 1975, the outfit became more aggressive after the infamous Wellikade jail massacre, in which separatists leaders Kuttimani and Jagan were eliminated by the forces.

Though the LTTE occasionally paused for diplomacy, first initiated by India in Thimpu in 1985 and later by Norway in 2002, there was no looking back for the dreaded organisation from its chosen path of violence. Prabhakaran led the LTTE from the secret jungles of Wanni in northern Sri Lanka and survived many a battle, but the current assault from the Lankan forces ended his dream as well as his life.

A 'freedom fighter' for his supporters and a dreaded terrorist for others, Prabhakaran was wanted by Interpol and many other organisations since 1990 for terrorism, murder and organised crime.

Known as 'thambi' (younger brother), Prabhakaran was responsible for the elimination of Sinhalese leaders -- President Premadasa, Damini Dissanayake (UNP Presidential candidate) and Ranjan Wijeratne and moderate Tamil leaders -- Appapillai Amirthalingam, Yogeswaran and his wife and Lakshman Kadirgamar, who was a foreign minister.

He did not spare his comrade-in-arms like PLOTE leader Uma Maheswaran, TELO's Siri Sabarathinam, EPRLF's Padmanabha and 14 of his colleagues in Chennai, besides his own LTTE dissenters like Mahthiah.

What started as a liberation movement in the late 1970s to attain freedom for 'oppressed' Tamils, later evolved as a ruthless organisation for which violence became a legitimate tool to eliminate political opponents.