Shanmugalingam Sivashankar (1962-18 May 2009), better known as Pottu Amman, was a leader of the Tamil Tigers during the Sri Lankan Civil War.
Biography[]
Shanmugalingam Sivashankar was born in 1962 in Nallur, Jaffna, Sri Lanka to a family of Hindu Tamils. He took the nickname of "Pottu Amman" and joined the Tamil Tigers in 1981 alongside Thillaiyampalam Sivanesan, and he led the Black Tigers suicide bomber unit during the Sri Lankan Civil War. Amman was almost certainly killed alongside Sivanesan and Velupillai Prabhakaran on 18 May 2009 when an RPG rocket hit their armored vehicle, although his body was not positively identified among several disfigured corpses. However, it has repeatedly been stated that he must have died, as the cordon around the area where they were killed was too tight for any LTTE fighters to escape.