Colombo:
Sri Lankan security forces have busted a hideout used by slain LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran during the last phase of the 30-year-old civil war and recovered weapons and files containing "classified information" from it.
The forces recovered 17 suicide jackets, 8 claymore mines, 300 kg of C-4 explosives and 7,000 jonny mines from the hideout.
"Police ascertained information about the hideout by questioning six of Prabhakaran's closest aides now in custody," the Island Newspaper reported.
Prabhakaran, whose body was recovered by Sri Lankan troops on May 19, is believed to have used the hideout in Wanni during the last phase of the war.
A police team headed by SSP Quintus Raymond conducted the search operation and recovered documents and 56 compact discs from the hideout.
The files pertaining to Prabhakaran, his family members and his close associates would help the police and the security forces with the on-going investigations.
Police said all these documents and weapons had been buried underground.
Ever since curtains came down on the three-decade civil war in Sri Lanka in May 2009, security forces have been recovering arms and ammunition from hideouts in the former stronghold of the Tamil Tigers.
The report said there was evidence that the LTTE had an arms manufacturing factory in the vicinity of Prabhakaran's hideout but was destroyed by the fleeing Tigers.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake has has said security forces were still continuing operations in the Wanni region to recover weapons and ammunition.
"Security Forces are engaged in operational activities even after the completion of humanitarian operations and that even now hauls of weapons are found hidden in certain places in the North," he told the Parliament.
"In Wanni the security forces has come across many mines and has unearthed many mysterious things," he said.