After the LTTE's battle with the IPKF in the jungles of Sri Lanka, Prabhakaran targeted Rajiv Gandhi and chose Sriperumbudur near Chennai to kill him during the election campaign in 1991, by using a suicide bomber. The LTTE had a grouse that Gandhi had imposed a peace agreement on the Tamils forcibly in 1987 and the IPKF was used to attack its cadre.

In his outfit's struggle for the separate Tamil homeland, Prabhakaran introduced suicide bombers, mostly young women, and targeted major installations of the Sri Lankan government, including military headquarters and the lone international airport in the country.

Born on 26 November, 1954 in the northern coastal town of Velvettithurai on the Jaffna peninsula, Prabhakaran, the youngest of four children, began attending political meetings and practising martial arts and soon became involved in the Tamil protest movement. Prabhakaran founded the LTTE in the late 1970s and carried out his first political murder against the mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiappah, a fellow Tamil, by shooting him at point blank range while he was about to enter Hindu temple at Ponnaalai.

Though no one is sure about Prabhakaran's personal life, he got married to Madhivadhani on October 1, 1984 in Tirupporur near Chennai and has daughter named Duwaraka -- two sons -- Charles Anthony and Balachandran.

While Charles was in the battlefront during the final phase of the war, the whereabouts of others are not known, but it is widely speculated that they are not in Sri Lanka. Though his followers consider him as a freedom fighter struggling for Tamil emancipation from Sinhala oppression, various nations, including India, have banned the organisation and branded him as a terrorist.
The LTTE is the only terrorist outfit in the world to have three armed forces wings -- Tigers (ground), Sea Tigers (Navy) and Air Tigers -- (Air Force). Interestingly, Black Tigers, the suicide wing of the LTTE, came into prominence when the Tigers launched their first suicide attack against a Sri Lankan army camp, killing 40 soldiers. The outfit has also earned the ire of human rights groups who allege that the LTTE recruits young children to fight against the army.

LTTE, which is believed to be funded by Tamils living in Europe and other countries across the world, agreed for a ceasefire with Sri Lanka in 2002.

But both the sides continued to violate the agreement, which was brokered by Norway, until it was formally abrogated by the Mahinda Rajapakse government.

Prabhakaran and the LTTE received a major blow when his confidant Colonel Karuna parted ways and formed his own outfit.However, he later converted as an opponent of the Tamil movement and is now serving as a minister. An estimated 4,000 cadres have been killed since then, including over a hundred in 'Black Tiger' suicide squads.