Ill-treatment for Tamil scholars (1)
nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov
nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov
Thu Jan 5 16:02:10 UTC 1995
Several Tamil scholars of repute were denied entry into
India to attend the ongoing World Tamil Conference in
Thanjavur.
N. Ganesan
nas_ng at lms461.jsc.nasa.gov
Copyright 1995 Reuters, Limited
The Reuter Library Report
January 3, 1995, Tuesday, BC cycle -04:35 Eastern Time
Swedish professor asked to leave India
Swedish professor decries deportation from India
A Swedish academic asked to leave India said on Tuesday that
allegations he was linked to guerrillas fighting for a Tamil
homeland in Sri Lanka were false.
"I am being deported," said Peter Schalk, a professor at Sweden's
Uppsala University, who had planned to attend an international
Tamil conference in the southern town of Thanjavur near Madras.
A Foreign Ministry official in New Delhi said at least two
delegates to the conference had been "politely asked to leave the
country" but gave no reasons.
The six-day meeting, which began on Sunday, addresses the ethnic
Tamil people's culture. Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao was
scheduled to deliver a speech to the meeting on Thursday.
"At midnight on December 31, five policemen knocked at the door
of my apartment and told me that I should leave Thanjavur by six
the next morning," Schalk told Reuters by phone from a hotel in
Madras.
"When I asked why I should do so, they said that there were alle-
gations that I was a supporter of the LTTE," he said, referring
to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who are fighting for a
separate Tamil state in northern and eastern Sri Lanka.
A Swedish embassy spokeswoman in New Delhi said authorities had
asked Schalk to leave the country for "security reasons." She
said the embassy did not know why the decision was taken.
The Swedish embassy said Schalk was planning to leave for Sweden
with his wife and two children.
The professor said allegations that he supported the LTTE were
"rubbish."
"I am a family man and I have no intention of contributing to any
armed conflict," he said.
Schalk said he was associated with Sri Lankan Tamils because Upp-
sala had an exchange programme with Jaffna University in the
LTTE-controlled northern region of the island nation.
Conference delegates said one of Schalk's Uppsala colleagues from
Sri Lanka, A. Velupillai, and Karthigesu Sivathamby of Jaffna
University were also denied entry to the meeting.
"This is nothing but a collective punishment of Jaffna scholars,"
Schalk said.
The Indian Express newspaper said police had combed hotels in
Thanjavur looking for LTTE members.
A suicide bomber from the LTTE was suspected to have killed form-
er Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. The group has
denied any involvement in the assassination.
Indian PM faces boycott over Tamil conference
By Jawed Naqvi
Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, fighting a major rebel-
lion in his Congress Party, faced more trouble on Tuesday after
colleagues from southern Tamil Nadu state threatened to boycott
an international Tamil meeting he was due to attend.
Tamil Congress Party leaders urged Rao to call off his scheduled
visit to the World Tamil Conference in Thanjavur city near Madras
on Thursday.
They said the conference was organised by the state's ruling All
India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIDMK) party. Congress re-
cently ended an electoral alliance with the AIDMK in Tamil Nadu
in a dispute over seat allocations.
Congress officials in the state said Tamil Nadu Congress
President K. Ramamurthy had sent Rao a letter explaining that
the party had been excluded from the organisation of the confer-
ence, which is to discuss the culture of the ethnic Tamil peo-
ples.
"There was no choice left for the Tamil leaders in Congress but
to oppose the prime minister's visit," said Rangarajan Kumaraman-
galam, a former minister in Rao's cabinet and deputy from Tamil
Nadu.
A Congress spokesman in New Delhi described the boycott move as
"highly irresponsible."
Congress leaders, speaking privately, linked Ramamurthy's threat
to the recent resignation from Rao's cabinet of his arch critic
Arjun Singh.
"It looks like part of the revolt the prime minister is facing
within the Congress," a Congress deputy said.
The Asian Age newspaper said Ramaurthy was a known supporter of
Singh. Both are loyal to Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of
former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi who was assassinated in 1991
by a suspected Sri Lankan Tamil militant.
Indian news agencies said three suspected sympathisers of the Sri
Lanka-based Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had been
stopped from attending Thursday's meeting.
A Foreign Ministry official in New Delhi confirmed at least two
Sri Lankan delegates who were not part of Sri Lanka's official
delegation to the conference had been "politely asked to return"
to the island off India's southern coast.
He did not not identifiy the two.
The LTTE is fighting for a separate Tamil state in northern and
eastern Sri Lanka. The group has denied India's accusation that
it was involved in Gandhi's assassination.
Singh, in his resignation letter to Rao, charged him with trying
to curtail a high-level probe into Gandhi's murder by a woman
suicide bomber, a suspected LTTE activist.
Gandhi was killed while campaigning in the 1991 general elections
which eventually brought Rao to power.
"Let us not for a moment forget that this government came to
power literally because of the supreme sacrifice made by our
beloved leader...Rajiv Gandhi," Singh wrote.
Newspapers say Sonia Gandhi, regarded as a potential threat to
Rao's leadership, was unhappy with his handling of the probe into
the killing of her husband.
Kumaramangalam said Rao's gesture in attending the Tamil confer-
ence, despite resistance from his party colleagues, could be part
of an effort to revive an alliance with the AIDMK.
"There is no other logical explanation for the visit," he said.
Thanks :: Reuter
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