Sri Lankan Tamil minister Douglas Devananda on Thursday regretted that “some LTTE loyalists” were raking up a Chennai criminal case involving him, in which he had already received pardon as per the Indo-Lankan Accord of 1987 following his surrendering the weapons and entering the political mainstream in the island country.
“It is strange that these people can freely carry placards and praise the proclaimed offender accused in the killing of Rajiv Gandhi but are now demanding my arrest for the death of a local in a Chennai shooting in 1986, when I was not even at that site of incident,” Mr Devananda said, referring to some media reports questioning why Delhi was providing him hospitality as a member of President Mahinda Rajapakse’s delegation, when he remained a proclaimed offender in that ’86 killing.
“I accepted the 1987 Accord and have been pro-democracy since then, working for the welfare of my Tamil people in Sri Lanka. I always respect law. My lawyer N.T. Vanamamalai in Chennai had explained to me clearly that I qualified for pardon under para 2.11 of the Indo-Lanka Accord,” said Mr Devananda, who heads the EPDP, which he had formed after quitting the EPRLF several years ago.