Lankan military denies terror training allegation

IANS

Colombo

The Sri Lankan military yesterday refuted as “baseless” an allegation by India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader in Tamil Nadu state that Pakistan-backed extremists are being trained in the country.

“In the backdrop of the Indian elections, an accusation has been made that terrorists are being trained in Sri Lanka. This is a baseless allegation,” military spokesman Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasooriya said.

“Sri Lanka is a country which suffered from terrorism for over 30 years. We will not support terrorism in whatever form,” Wanigasooriya stressed.

Tamil Nadu BJP leader L Ganesan had on Saturday charged that Pakistan-backed extremists were being trained in Sri Lanka and would be infiltrated into India to execute terror attacks.

Ganesan said the training was being carried out despite both Pakistan and Sri Lanka being aware of it.

Action on terrorist list: India has complied with Sri Lanka’s ban on 16 Tamil diaspora groups and 424 of their supporters on grounds that they are allegedly involved in terror activities while the United States ignored the list, a media report in Colombo said yesterday.

Some of the designated organisations had met the US Assistant Secretary of State for Central and South Asia, Nisha Biswal, last Thursday in Washington, the Sunday Times reported.

A US embassy spokesman in Colombo confirmed the meeting.

Sri Lanka had designated 16 Tamil diaspora groups and 424 individuals as terrorists late March.

They are based in many countries including India.

Sri Lanka was planning to ask the foreign governments to crack down on them, the government sources earlier said.

Canada became the first country to publicly state that Sri Lankan order would be ignored.

“Sri Lanka’s action has no legal effect in Canada,” a joint statement from Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird and his deputy Lynne Yelich had said.

India has acted on the information contained in the order. One of the 424 persons named, who was returning to India from the UK for medical treatment for his mother was turned away.

A similar course of action has also been taken by immigration officials in Tehran, Iran when one of them visited the country.

Sri Lanka said that they are in possession of information on substantial amounts of money remitted from overseas for planned terrorist activity.