NEW DELHI: India warned Sri Lanka that it would take a very serious view of Colombo’s failure to guarantee the safety and security of Tamils.
A foreign ministry spokesperson said the lifting of emergency by the Sri Lankan president, R Premadasa, exposed the hollowness of the allegations made by the foreign minister, Ranjan Wijeratne that India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) was attempting to kill key functionaries of the government in Colombo.
Rejecting Wijeratne’s allegation as “unfortunate and irresponsible”, the spokesperson said perhaps the Sri Lankan authorities were trying to prepare an Alibi for a possible exodus of the refugees.
Colombo has apprehensions about internecine clashes among Tamil groups and its failure to guarantee the safety and security of Tamils following reduction of the IPKF from the Island nation, the spokesperson said.
“The government of India would take a very serious view of this,” he emphasized.
The spokesperson recalled that who Tamil United Liberation Front leaders, Amrithalingam and Yogeswaran, were killed the bogey of the involvement of the Indian intelligence agency had been raised.
Subsequently, the LTTE owned up these assassinations causing embarrassment to the Sri Lankan government, he recalled.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 23, 1990
