Even as India waited for the final draft of the US resolution and a briefing by its Permanent Representative flying into Delhi on Tuesday to decide its response at the UNHCR session in Geneva, reports suggest that the foreign ministry continues to nurse view that interventional measures should be avoided. The recommendation in the US resolution seeking an “independent, international inquiry” into the allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka has not gone down well with India, sources said.
Another demand was for sending an eight-member delegation of special international emissaries to study the law and order situation in Sri Lanka, besides studying the conditions of living of the Tamil people. The Indian delegation at Geneva is understood to have expressed the view that an amendment would be required to this clause to insist that such an international team could visit the island only after getting the approval of Colombo. “Such an exercise should be undertaken only with the support of the Sri Lankan government, otherwise it would amount to outside intervention in the affairs of a country”, said a source from Geneva.
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Tamils issue: 500 students held for stir
Chennai, March 18: Over 500 college students were arrested here for attempting to picket the Raj Bhavan even as they continued their protests over the Sri Lankan Tamils issue for the eighth day on Monday.
A large number of students joined the protests despite government directing closure of educational institutions.
Protests ranged from fast to agitation to boycott of classes in various parts of the state including Coimbatore, Salem and Tirunelveli, with students pressing for various demands, including an independent probe against Colombo. — PTI
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2 Lanka monks attacked in chennai
V.P. Raghu
Chennai, March 18
In another incident in a series of senseless display of rage against visiting Sri Lankans, three young men bashed up two Buddhist monks at the Central railway station Monday morning when they arrived by the Tamil Nadu Express from Delhi after pilgrimage in the north. The victims were part of a 19-member group of pilgrims, many of them Tamils, from Sri Lanka.
The attack took place even as scores of passengers watched and a private TV channel crew merrily filmed the thugs chasing the monks.