DMK slams UPA's silence on atrocities in Sri Lanka

New Delhi, Mar 19: Barely an hour after the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) announced that it is withdrawing support to the ruling coalition, a senior MP of the party hit out at the UPA's silence on the continuing atrocities against ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka

Speaking in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, TKS Elangovan criticised the Centre for not intervening even though it is clear that the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime has been presiding over countless human rights abuses.

Referring to the Lankan government's assurances that the Tamils who are a minority in the island nation will not be ill-treated, he asked: "What are you waiting for? Why are you allowing human rights violations and genocide to continue there? Why is India a silent spectator?"

The DMK leader pointed out that pro-Tamil parties and organisations have been agitating against Colombo ever since Channel 4 released pictures of Balachandran, the 12-year-old son of slain LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, who was shot dead by Lankan soldiers in cold blood.

Citing the protests staged by students of colleges in Chennai, Coimbatore and other places across the state in the past few days, Elangovan said: "Tamil Nadu is burning. Students are out on the streets."

He expressed disappointment over the current text of the United States-sponsored resolution that is to be tabled at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) meeting in Geneva later this week. "We were expecting a strong resolution but the US resolution has failed to fulfil aspirations of Tamils in Sri Lanka and India," Elangovan noted.

Earlier in the day, DMK supremo M Karunanidhi told newspersons that the Mamnohan Singh government had allowed the US to "water down" the resolution against Sri Lanka. He rued that it was not just the Centre, even the UN had "betrayed" the Tamils.

Karunanidhi stressed that "no Tamil can accept" the conspiracy between Lanka and India to "open the doors to activities inimical to democracy."

OneIndia News (with agency inputs)