He was arrested and sentenced to death, and was killed in the 1983 Welikada prison massacre[2] along with the other TELO leader Nadarajah Thangathurai.
Kuttimani was a firm believer that only a free, independent country for the island's Tamils in their traditional homeland will protect their legitimate rights.
[3] Kuttimani, Nadarajah and many others would later be arrested in 1981, in a brutal and intensive government crackdown of most of the Tamil liberation groups and activists.
Before his death, Kuttimani was officially nominated to the Vaddukoddai constituency in 15 October 1982, when the then sitting member of TULF party, T.Thirunavukkarau died on 1 August 1982.
In a statement issued to explain the reasons for nominating Kuttimani to the vacant parliamentary seat, the TULF officials included five.
Subsequently, on 4 February 1983, Kuttimani's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment under the general amnesty proclaimed by President Jayewardene.
I will not be able to see the free Tamil Eelam but, at least, let my eyes see it.Upon his death sentence, Kuttimani was sent to the Welikada (Welikade) maximum-security prison to wait for his execution.
[5] Both the eyes of Kuttimani as well as Jeganathan were mutilated and gouged out with iron bars, since he had dreamed of seeing with them, through another person after his execution, an independent Tamil state.