Chennai witnesses protest over Lankan war

Chennai, Jan 30: A day after Muthukumar set himself ablaze to protest the targeting of Lankan Tamils, Chennai witnessed a series of protests on Friday, Jan 30. Large number of people gathered to protest the war in Sri Lanka between the army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam. Several major roads were blocked by the protesters, thus traffic was halted in the city.

The protestors even went to attack Sri Lankan consulate, which was thwarted by the Chennai Police. 36 students of Salem Law College have been arrested in this regard.

Photographs of UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa were burnt by the members of Madras High Court Advocates Association (MHCAA). Advocates demanded protection to Lankan Tamils.

President of the Madras High Court Bar Council Prabhakaran said to a news channel that: "Today the entire legal fraternity in the state will go on to boycott the court activity." "We demand that the Central government of India gets (ensures) peace in Sri Lanka and then we will ask the UN Security council to intervene and keep the UN Peace Keeing Force and to set the issue right."

"We also demand that the Central governement of India, especially the External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to set the issue right." "The ethnic cleansing issue is rather bad in Sri Lanka and every day 100 to 200 Tamil people are killed in Sri Lanka. So far we have gone on several agitations against the government and now we are sending a warning to Rajapakse," he added.

Asked why they were supporting the LTTE, a banned terrorist organisation, Prabhakaran said, "We are not supporting the LTTE. We are fighting for the cause of the Sri Lankan Tamils. The Sri Lankan government is promising safe passage to Tamilians but that is a wrong picture, It is the Sri Lankan army that is shooting and the people are fleeing from them."

He warned that the state and Central government should sort out the issue soon or the protests would continue.

OneIndia News (With inputs from Agencies)