It was February 27, 1995. Four summers earlier at an election rally in Sriperumbudur, Dhanu, a suicide bomber of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), had assassinated Rajiv Gandhi, who was widely tipped to return as Prime Minister of India. The LTTE was soon banned in India. Yet, its operatives were making news in Tamil Nadu on and off.
That February night bore testimony to the capability of the LTTE militants to spring audacious surprises. Around 10.15 p.m., nine LTTE prisoners walked out of two adjoining cells, which was strangely not locked, and made a daring escape from the Madras Central Prison. The jail was then located diagonally opposite the Madras Central Railway Station, a round-the-clock busy area. Once outside the fortress-like prison complex, they split into two groups and headed out in different directions. All of them were detenus under the Terrorists and Disruptive Act (TADA).
Within hours, Tamil Nadu was on high alert. Security had been beefed up all around, particularly along district and inter-state borders. By 1 a.m., many policemen were intercepting vehicles going out of Madras and checking if the facial features of the passengers matched with the facsimile images of the nine militants handed out to them.
