Colombo: Sri Lanka arrested a local staff member attached to a United Nation organisation for carrying a pistol with him, the defence ministry has said.

Thiagaraja Prabhakaran, working with the World Food Programme office in the northern district of Kilinochchi, was held yesterday while he was being searched at a roadblock in northern Vavuniya, a statement said.

The suspect had confessed to carrying the small weapon for someone else in the eastern district of Batticaloa, in return for cash, it added.

The UN said in a statement that the aid worker was travelling in a private vehicle outside his working hours at the time of his arrest.

"The matter is currently under police investigation while the UN is fully co-operating with the authorities," the UN said in a release.

Government officials frequently accuse international aid groups of pro-rebel leanings.

Last year, the foreign ministry asked the United Nations Children's Fund to withdraw some of its foreign staff for having taken part in a peaceful demonstration against the killing of local Red Cross workers.

UN officials have said that Sri Lanka is among the most dangerous places for aid workers in the world. Seventeen Sri Lankan employees of the French charity Action Against Hunger were murdered near Trincomalee in August 2006.

Tens of thousands of people have died since the Tamil Tigers launched a separatist campaign in 1972 to carve out a separate homeland for minority Tamils.
Source : PTI