Yielding to pressure from chief minister J Jayalalithaa and several other political leaders, the Centre on Friday moved the nine Sri Lankan airmen from the IAF station at Tambaram to Bengaluru for continuing training.
But the chief minister demanded that the Lankans should be packed off to their country as training them anywhere in India amounted to insulting the Tamils.
In a statement, the chief minister said the Tamils wondered if the UPA government at the Centre, in which the DMK was a constituent, was acting in favour of those who harmed the Tamils.
In this connection, she recalled the recent United Nations resolution against Colombo for the war crimes against Tamil civilians and said it was the unanimous demand of all Tamils that action must be taken against those responsible.
Earlier in the day, a statement from the Tambaram IAF station said, “All Sri Lankan trainees are being set off today from this station as per the instruction of the ministry of defence”.
But then, instead of sending them back to Sri Lanka as demanded by Ms Jayalalithaa and other Tamil Nadu leaders, ministry of defence decided to accommodate them at the Indian Air Force station at Yelahanka near Bengaluru.