‘NIS official trivialised sentiments of TN people’

Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Sunday suspended the Stadium Officer of the Nehru Indoor Stadium (NIS) here for permitting the Sri Lankan football team to play there on August 31.

The Chief Minister said she had come to know that the Royal College of Colombo had requested an official of the Reserve Bank of India in Chennai to make arrangements for Lankan football players to take part in friendly matches and following this, a team from there had arrived here on August 30 and played with the Chennai Customs team at the Nehru Indoor Stadium on August 31.

She had ordered an inquiry into it after it was revealed that the RBI official had approached the Stadium Officer of the NIS with an oral request and the officer too had given ‘oral permission’ for the matches between the Lankan and Chennai teams.

The Chief Minister pointed out that the Stadium Officer of NIS had no powers to accord permission for conducting matches in the stadium and that the powers rested with the Tamil Nadu Sports Development Authority.

“By allowing the Lankan football players to take part in a match at the NIS, the Stadium Officer had not only misused his position, but also trivialised the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu,” Jayalalithaa added.

The CM also observed that the Centre had been paying scant regard to the resolution adopted by the Tamil Nadu State Assembly urging the Government of India to impose economic sanctions on Sri Lanka in association with other countries until the island nation resettled all the internally-displaced Tamils in their native areas and accorded them equal rights on a par with the Sinhalese.

On the other hand, the Centre has been indulging in activities like training Lankan defence personnel in Tamil Nadu, thereby insulting the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu.

In this connection, Jayalalithaa recalled that despite her strong opposition, the Centre had been continuing the training for Lankan defence personnel by shifting them from Tamil Nadu to another State.

Further, the Centre had failed to accord even an iota of respect for the request made by her and the people of Tamil Nadu to send back the Lankan personnel from the Defence Services Staff College, in Nilgiris district.