India fears revival of LTTE, extends ban

NEW DELHI - India has extended its ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as it fears the revival of the outlawed group, a senior official said here Tuesday.

“There is still a threat from the LTTE. The ban has been extended by the home ministry, the official, who did not wish to be named, said.

There are apprehensions about the revival of the LTTE, he said a couple of days before External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna goes to Sri Lanka for wide-ranging talks with his counterpart G.L. Peiris.

Early this month, a special tribunal headed by a Delhi High Court judge upheld the central government’s decision to extend the ban on the terror group for two more years, stating that the organisation was regrouping in India to form a base and was thus a threat to the security of the country.

The LTTE was banned in 1992 and the government has since extended the ban every two years. The group is also banned in the European Union, Canada and the US.

The LTTE, which was spearheading an armed insurgency for a separate Tamil Eelam, was vanquished by the Sri Lankan military in May last year.

Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers have told Home Minister P. Chidambaram that it is not trying to regroup and is also not engaged in any illegal activity in this country. In an open letter to the minister, the vanquished LTTE has also described as “totally untrue” claims by Indian officials that the Tigers had links with Indian Maoists.

The letter, dated Nov 5 and reproduced by pro-LTTE websites believed to be operated from the west, has been copied to External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi.