Colombo, Aug 2 (Xinhua) A senior civil administration official in the Sri Lankan government has been arrested for alleged links with the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels, police said Sunday.

Nagalingam Vethanayagam, the government agent of Kilinochchi, was arrested Friday following information from an arrested Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadre, police said.

Vethanayagam held the post in the former LTTE political headquarters until January this year when Kilinochchi was recaptured by the government troops.

The government agent is the senior most civil service administrative officer of a district in Sri Lanka.

The authorities keep on interrogating former rebel cadres now housed in camps for displaced persons in the northern districts of Jaffna and Vavuniya.

They are among the near 300,000 civilians affected by the final battles between the government troops and the LTTE.

The LTTE had been fighting for more than two decades to carve out an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east before they were defeated by the troops in May.