Jayalalithaa conveys deep sense of outrage

Jun 10, 2013

Tags:

Chennai: Chief minister J Jayalalithaa on Sunday took strong exception to the Centre’s “astounding insensitivity” in once again inviting two Sri Lankan military officers for training at the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington “despite the overwhelming groundswell of public opinion in Tamil Nadu against the continuing atrocities upon the Tamils in Sri Lanka”.

It was shocking that the Lankan officers began their training on the very day that Defence Minister A K Antony declared on the sidelines of a function at Thanjavur (May 27) that responding to the public sentiment in Tamil Nadu, the Indian Government had taken a decision not to provide training to the Lankan military personnel in Tamil Nadu.

“I am amazed that the Defence Minister was unaware that his policy announcement was being flouted by his own Ministry. “This is a very sorry commentary of the Government of India’s ambivalence and ad hocism on a serious and emotive issue that affects the people of Tamil Nadu”, Jayalalithaa said in a letter she wrote to the Prime Minister. Copies of the letter were made available to the media here.

She recalled to the PM that she had written to him on this issue thrice last year—July 16, August 25 and August 28—and regretted that despite her several protests and the strong public sentiment in Tamil Nadu, besides the resolutions passed in the TN Assembly condemning Colombo’s hostility against Tamils, the Indian Government had chosen to “clandestinely” permit the two officers, Wing

Commander M S Bandara Dassanayake and Major C S Harishchandra Hettiarachchige, to the Wellington training programme.

Strongly urging the PM to get the two Lankan officers immediately sent back to their country, Jayalalithaa reiterated her demand that Delhi should issue “a clear policy directive” not to provide training or engage in any form of cooperation with the Lankan armed forces until “satisfactory and credible action” is taken by Colombo to completely stop the human rights violations against the Tamils in Sri Lanka and also the illegal attacks on fishermen of Tamil Nadu.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/235955" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-d4314c4a6b57c30da9636e30a6fc9e3e" value="form-d4314c4a6b57c30da9636e30a6fc9e3e" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80493981" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>