India extends ban on LTTE

The government has extended the ban on LTTE declaring that it continues to adopt a strong anti-India posture and pose a grave threat to the security of its citizens. In a notification, the Home Ministry said the activities of LTTE are detrimental to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India and there is a continuing strong need to control all such separatist activities by all possible means. "LTTE continues to adopt a strong anti-India posture as also continues to pose a grave threat to the security of Indian nationals, it is necessary to declare LTTE as an 'unlawful association' with immediate effect," the Home Ministry notification issued by joint secretary Dharmendra Sharma said.

LTTE was banned in India in the aftermath of the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. The organisation was also defeated and virtually decimated by the Sri Lankan forces in 2009 when its supremo V Prabhakaran was also eliminated.

The Home Ministry said separatist Tamil chauvinist and pro-LTTE groups continue to foster a separatist tendency among the masses and trying to enhance the support base for LTTE in India, particularly in Tamil Nadu, which will ultimately have a strong disintegrating influence over the territorial integrity of India.

"The diaspora continue to spread through articles in the Internet portals, anti-India feeling amongst the Sri Lankan Tamils by holding the top Indian political leaders and bureaucrats responsible for the defeat of the LTTE," it said.

"Such propaganda through Internet, which remains continued, is likely to impact VVIP security adversely in India," the notification said.

The Home Ministry said the activities of the LTTE remnant cadres, dropouts, sympathisers, supporters who have been traced out recently in Tamil Nadu suggest that the cadres sent to Tamil Nadu would ultimately be utilised by the LTTE for unlawful activities.

The activities of pro-LTTE organisations and individuals have come to notice of the government that despite of the ban in force, attempts have been made by these forces to extend their support to the LTTE.

"The LTTE leaders, operatives and supporters have been inimically opposed to India's policy on their organisation and action of the state machinery in curbing their activities," it said.

The Home Ministry also said the LTTE's objective for a separate homeland (Tamil Eelam) for all Tamils threatens the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India and amounts to cession from the Union and thus falls the ambit of an unlawful activities.

The LTTE, even after its military defeat in May 2009 in Sri Lanka, has not abandoned the concept of 'Eelam' and has been clandestinely working towards the 'Eelam' cause by undertaking fund raising and propaganda activities in Europe.

The remnant LTTE leaders or cadres have also initiated efforts to regroup the scattered activities and resurrect the outfit locally and internationally, it said.

(PTI)