This incident sparked the Thirunelveli massacre and the Black July riots and is considered to be the start of the Sri Lankan Civil War.

2nd Lt. Gunawardene received the instructions from Major De Silva who further emphasized that the patrol must be in Madagal Camp by midnight.

During this time Sellakili was planning on getting revenge for the death of Charles Lucas Anthony aka Seelan, the most wanted Tamil militant after LTTE top leader Velupillai Prabhakaran,[3] and had observed the army patrols.

That night a group of 25 LTTE men, including Prabhakaran, Colonel Kittu, Iyer, Lt. Col. Victor, Lt. Col. Pulendran, Lt. Shellakili Ammaan, Lt. Col. Santhosam, basheer kaka and Lt. Col. Appaiah gathered at Thirunelveli on the Palali–Jaffna road at a point where the road was dug up to install new telecommunication equipment.

Near one such excavation four mines were placed and a plunger stolen from the Kankesanturai Cement Factory was placed on the balcony of a nearby house.

Karunaratne in the rear and a Tata Benz half truck with the rest of the patrol with Sergent S.I.

Five minutes of leaving Urumpirai the Jeep was slowing down near Tinneveli because of the obstruction on the road due to the installation of telecommunication equipment.

As it was passing the excavation on the road, the exploder set off the mines, followed by a hail of machine gun fire on the Jeep and the half-truck.

G.D. Perera charged at the enemy firing his L1A1, his body was found a short distance from the jeep.

At 23:40 a message was sent to Brigadier Balthazar that radio contact with the patrol was lost and that a sentry had heard gunfire and explosions in the distance.

The Army camps in Palali, Madagal, Thondamanar and Velvettiturai were alerted and the ambush prepared for Four Four Charlie was canceled by the Brigadier.

Brigadier Balthazar himself reached the location along with Major Sarath Munasinghe his intelligence officer, and found Sgt.