'Centre insulting Tamils by training SL defence personnel'

Jayalalithaa-led All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Monday launched a scathing attack on the Centre, charging it with 'insulting' Tamils by imparting military training to Sri Lankan defence personnel.

The meeting of the party's executive, attended by the chief minister among others, said the Centre had taken it up as a 'duty' to train Lankan military personnel in India.    

While demanding that some of them presently in India be immediately sent back, it also called for an end to their training on Indian soil.

However the party refrained from taking up the 'coalgate' scam over alleged losses in coal mining. "That the Centre has taken it up as a duty to train Sri Lankan personnel who (allgedly) harass Tamils in Lanka besides its navy attacking Indian fishermen amounts to insulting the entire Tamil race," one of the 16 resolutions adopted by the members said.

The Centre should take steps to end attacks on fishermen and this should include retrieval of 'Katchatheevu,' an islet ceded to Sri Lanka by India in 1974 through an agreement, it said, while citing a case already filed by Jayalalithaa in the Supreme Court in this regard.

"The Sri Lankan personnel undergoing training at Bangalore and Wellington (in Tamil Nadu) should be immediately sent back," it said, adding New Delhi should stop training them in future.