On Friday, members of the Valikamam North local council, governed by the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), Sri Lanka's oldest Tamil party, passed a resolution saying they would not engage in any official activity till ``normalcy'' returned to the area.

Earlier, council chairman Sri Paskaran had written to the TULF leadership in Colombo demanding that the party give the Government a four-month deadline to resolve the ethnic crisis. He added in the letter that for most of that time he would be on leave.

Party sources said Paskaran was under pressure from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to stay away or else prepare to meet the same fate as Jaffna Mayor Sarojini Yogeswaran, who was gunned down last month.

Elections to local bodies in the peninsula wereheld in January.

Jaffna was secured by the military two years ago and the Government was keen to demonstrate to the world that it was sincere in its promise to pass on control of the area from the Army to elected representatives.

Though infiltration by the LTTE into the peninsula gave rise to fears about security of candidates, elections passed off peacefully.

However, the killing of Yogeswaran in May sent shivers down many a spine in Jaffna.

Soon after the incident, four other TULF members of the Jaffna municipal council, including its Deputy Mayor K Thirunvakkarasu, resigned. Besides the two resignation-hit TULF-governed local councils, most other councils too have not been functioning. Very few of the Councillors elected in January have assumed office, while most have not, citing one reason or the other.

Recently, 104 Councillors of the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) and those of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) elected in January to various local bodies were disqualifiedfor not taking oath of office within the stipulated period.

While the EPDP said it was protesting insufficient funds to the councils, the TELO said its boycott was against the Government's devolution proposals.