Tamil Nadu cut up with Malaysian minister over LTTE

NEW DELHI - Tamil Nadu Police hope Malaysian Tamil politician P. Ramasamy will keep away from the upcoming World Tamil Conference in India because he is seen as a sympathiser of the Tamil Tigers.

Home ministry sources say the police force is against Ramasamy’s participation in the conference in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu June 23-27. The meet is expected to draw hundreds of delegates from India and outside.

Participants will come from almost every country where Tamil is an official language or where the language is widely spoken. This includes Malaysia, which is home to a large number of Tamil-speaking people.

According to the sources, Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary K.S. Sripathi has written to union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai pointing out the Malaysian’s statements in support of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Ramasamy is deputy chief minister of Malaysia’s Penang state. He visited India in February when he reportedly made “provocative speeches” favouring the LTTE.

The LTTE, which the Sri Lankan military decimated in May last year, has been outlawed in India since it assassinated former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991.

The sources said Indian intelligence agencies had mounted a watch on Ramasamy after he also spoke out against Indian leaders, blaming them for the LTTE’s demise and its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran’s death last year.

“Some of his comments are outrageous,” an intelligence source told IANS. “The Tamil Nadu police will be happy if he does not come to Tamil Nadu for the Coimbatore conference.

“The authorities in Tamil Nadu routinely keep away foreigners suspected to be pro-LTTE,” the source added.

India this year again extended the ban on the LTTE, saying the continuing activities of its supporters posed a danger to Indian interests.

Ramaswamy’s speeches have been videotaped. Among other things, he had accused the Indian government of helping wipe out the LTTE sympathisers and flayed New Delhi’s decision to deport Prabhakaran’s mother Parvathi.

The elderly woman had arrived in Chennai from Malaysia saying she wanted to take medical treatment in Tamil Nadu, where she and her late husband — besides Prabhakaran himself — had lived for years.

But citing security reasons, Indian authorities did not allow her to disembark from the aircraft. She had to return to Kuala Lumpur on the same plane.

A former Sri Lankan Tamil MP who had coordinated with her to fly to India was also quietly deported from India when he flew into Chennai.

An official source said if necessary, the Malaysian minister would be given the same treatment.

“We respect foreigners but only if they do not interfere in our affairs,” said an informed source. “We don’t like to encourage people who speak against India, that too on Indian soil.”

(Anjali Ojha can be contacted at anjali.o@ians.in)