Centre insulting Tamils by training Lankan personnel:Jayalalithaa

Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK today 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.

Meanwhile, taking a jibe at Karunanidhi, AIADMK executive said, the DMK took up the Sri Lankan Tamils' cause only when it was out of power and charged him with focussing his resources towards his "family's welfare" while managing the reigns.

Recalling Karunanidhi's 2009 "fast unto death" during the peak of hostilities between Lankan armed forces and LTTE, the executive alleged that scores of Tamils had left bunkers on his assurance that a ceasefire had been announced.

"He had (recently) said Sri Lankan government had misled him (through Centre on assurance on ceasefire). Believing his word, Tamils who left the bunkers were killed and he has now made candid confession of his role in their killing," a resolution claimed.

Without using the term TESO conference, a pro-Eelam meet held recently by the 88 year-old leader, AIADMK described it as "a drama".

Among other resolutions adopted were demanding convening of Cauvery River Authority, allocating the entire power from Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant to the state, restoring state's kerosene quota and giving more respect to the federal structure by involving states in taking key decisions.

The AIADMK Executive also made obituary referrences to former Union Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and BJP leader Sukumaran Nambiar, among others.