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February 7, 2008
India Urged to End Military Support
to Sri Lanka

New Delhi
Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony was Thursday urged by a group of Indian Tamils to end military support to Sri Lanka, saying it was worsening the situation in the island.

Periyar Dravida Kazhagam leader Kolathur Mani said that Antony heard carefully what his delegation had to say but he made no commitment, the Tamil Nadu political leader said.

"We told him that the Indian government needed to respect Tamil sentiments. Now that Colombo has rejected the ceasefire it signed with the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), India should stop helping Sri Lanka militarily," Mani told IANS after meeting Antony.

"India should only work towards a political solution in Sri Lanka," he added. "The land of Mahatma Gandhi should not be seen as providing arms to the land of Buddha."

But Mani, a long-time sympathiser of the Tamil Tigers, said Antony made no commitment. "He kept saying 'ok, ok' to everything we said but he did not give us any assurance that India's policy will change."

Mani said his delegation also showed Antony 10,000 of the one million signatures collected mainly in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry urging India to end its wide-ranging military backing to Sri Lanka.

Mani's comments came a day after he led a 500-strong demonstration in the heart of the Indian capital in support of the same demand. Most of the protestors were from Tamil Nadu, a few from Mumbai and New Delhi.

Thousands have been killed and many injured in escalating violence across Sri Lanka blamed on the LTTE and Sri Lankan armed forces in the past two years. Sri Lanka in January abrogated a Norway-brokered truce it signed with the Tigers in 2002.

February 7, 2008 

IANS | Top