MADRAS, India: Indian authorities have indefinitely banned visitors from entering the domestic
And internationals of the airport in the southern was taken on Tuesday by the security committee not to allow Visitors into the international and national airports at Madras until further orders, for security reasons,” a senior Airport Authorities of India official said.
He said security may have been stepped up after a bomb blast in Pakistan on Monday, which killed at least four people and injured nearly 70. Fresh violence in neighboring Sri Lanka, separated from India’s Tamil Nadu state by a narrow channel, may have also triggered the security alert, the official said. The coastal city Madras is capital of Tamil Nadu, home to some 60 million Tamils who have close cultural and ethnic links with Sn Lankan Tamils.
Tamil separatist rebels in Sri Lanka last week launched an assault against the army; the latest onslaught in a 13yearold war that Colombo says has killed more than 50,000 people. An Indian Civil Aviation Ministry spokeswoman said the decision to ban non travellers and non-staff from the airport was a “routine” procedure. “Normally these things are done because there is a slight increase in militant activity. Sometimes it is necessary to restrict the number of people in a place,” she said.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 31, 1996
