Thiruvananthapuram, 17 August(H.S): Its official now. Former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had armed and trained the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) terrorists.

Not only that, the mother-son duo provided various places in Indian States to train the LTTE terrorists who were fighting to disintegrate Sri Lanka and had declared the creation of a separate Tamil Eelam in the island nation.

The LTTE terrorists had assassinated many eminent Sinhala politicians , businessmen, bureaucrats whom they found to be inconvenient to their “free run”.

While most of these details are available in the public domain, the memoirs “The Turning Point-The Naval Role in Sri Lanka’s War on LTTE Terrorism” (published by Penguin Books) authored by Wasantha Karannagoda, the former chief of staff of the Sri Lanka Navy during the tumultuous period when the terrorist organization flourished in Sri Lanka.

Karannagoda, the country’s first Admiral of the Fleet, says in his memoirs that the LTTE and Prabhakaran were nurtured by Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi in the establishment of the proposed Tamil Eelam which would have brought down Sri Lanka’s area by 50 per cent.

What is shocking is that Rajiv Gandhi helped Prabhakaran to escape to safety from Jaffna peninsula when the Sri Lanka defense forces surrounded him in July 1987. With the navy encircling all the escape routes available in Trincomalee area and the Army taking control of the land routes, Prabhakaran was left with no alternatives other than taking cyanide capsules or surrendering to the defense forces.

Karannagoda says in his memoirs that Rajiv Gandhi ordered Operation Poomalai at this juncture to save Prabhakaran from Sri Lanka’s forces. Giant transport aircraft (An-32) of the Indian Air Forces were pressed into service and airdropped nearly 25 tons ration materials into Jaffna under the pretext of humanitarian aid. The An-32 aircraft, purchased from the then Soviet Union were accompanied by Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft.

“To save the LTTE leader, the IAF cargo aircraft, escorted by fighter jets, entered the Sri Lankan airspace in a blatant violation of international norms and Sri Lanak’s sovereignty; their entry was on the pretext of airdropping humanitarian aid -dry rations-into the Jaffna peninsula.

Their purpose was to prevent Prabhakaran from captured or killed by the Sri Lanka Army. With that arm-twisting act, India forced the Government of Sri Lanka to stop Operation Liberation and enter into dialogue with the LTTE, a non-State actor.

India forced the Sri Lankan Government to sign the Indo-Lanka Peace accord on 29th July 1987. India did not stop at that and sent its troops to Sri Lanka-the Indian Peace Keeping Force -in July 1987 to monitor the truce,” writes the admiral of the Fleet.

The country was told by Rajiv Gandhi that the IPKF was sent at the request of Sri Lankan Government and this has been proved a blatant lie by Sri Lankan government itself.

Rajiv Gandhi was murdered by the LTTE terrorists at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu during the 1991 election campaign.

The main accused Murugan and Nalini, sentenced to death by the Special TADA Corut in Chennai and which was ratified by Supreme Court were helped by Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra from the noose of the hangman’s rope.

Nalini is back in Sri Lanka from where she flew away to a European country to join her relations.

All the accused in the Rajiv Gandhi murder case, sentenced to death after the TADA Court trial, were saved by the ruling dispensation in Tamil Nadu and at the Centre (read UPA Government).

Hindusthan Samachar / Manohar Yadavatti