COLOMBO/CHENNAI: New Delhi and Colombo on Monday denied a Lanka media report that tried to attribute some of the recent spate of murders in the island’s Tamil-speaking North and East to Lankan Tamil terrorists.
About 150 terrorists freshly trained in camps in Tamil Nadu had infiltrated into Lanka and that group might have been responsible for the crimes, the report published in The Island had insinuated.
“The suggestion contained in the news item regarding the training of terrorists at three secret camps in TN, is entirely erroneous and baseless,” the Indian High Commission said in a press release here.
“Relevant agencies of the two countries have on-going cooperation, and no such information has been brought to the notice of the Government of India,” the release said.
Lankan military spokesman Brig Ruwan Wanigsuriya too said that the report was incorrect. “It was based on what one person said. That was not corroborated,” he said.
The Island quoted Lankan intelligence to say that the infiltration came to light when three LTTE cadre were taken into custody after an Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) member was hacked to death in Trincomalee.
The suspects said they had fled to India after the LTTE’s defeat in May 2009, and followed refresher military courses in secret locations in TN before returning to Lanka disguised as fishermen to conduct clandestine operations in the North and the East.
In Chennai, the Tamil Nadu Police too rubbished the report.
“There are no training camps in TN. Extremist organisations remain banned in the State and the report in this connection is totally baseless,” Director General of Police K Ramanujam said in a statement. The DGP said that a similar report had surfaced in Sri Lanka some time back and was later retracted.
“A strict vigil is being maintained to curb any overt or covert activity. Any (pro-Eelam) activist identified is lodged in a special camp... Therefore, there is no question of any training camp functioning or being allowed to function in Tamil Nadu,” he said.