Karunanidhi warns LTTE to keep off Tamil coast

Issuing a stern warning against terrorist or extremist groups using Tamil Nadu as a base for their “clandestine activities”, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today said his government would not permit any act of violence to be perpetrated by them.

Issuing a stern warning against terrorist or extremist groups using Tamil Nadu as a base for their “clandestine activities”, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today said his government would not permit any act of violence to be perpetrated by them. “I wish to make it clear that any harm or threat to India’s security will not be taken lightly by the government,” he said.

“The LTTE has no work in Tamil Nadu anymore and the government is firm in ensuring that their activities do not resurface here. We will not permit the LTTE to get active in the state,” Karunanidhi said.

But, in the past few months, the state police and the maritime agencies intercepted several consignments of materials, for making explosives such as landmines, being carried by LTTE operatives and fishermen. The officials have even gone on record to state that the contraband was meant for the Tigers.

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To prevent smuggling of arms and ammunition across the Palk Straits, Karunanidhi said a new ‘Grade-I’ police station would be set up at a cost of Rs 1 crore this year in Oragadam area near Sriperumbudur, 40 km from Chennai, where in the recent months the government has signed MoUs for huge investments worth more than Rs 2,000 crore. A state-of-the-art national automotive design, development and testing centre is also coming up at Oragadam.

Karunanidhi said the present Grade V police station would be upgraded to Grade I at Sunguvar Chatram, where several new manufacturers including Lord Swaraj Paul’s Caparo Group have been allotted land. A new building for a police station at Sriperumbudur has also been sanctioned.

The Chief Minister said it was wrong to suppose that the LTTE was behind all these incidents. Their “approach and goal are now entirely different,” he said, referring to the Tigers’ recent air attacks on the Sri Lankan government’s defence installations.

When a Congress member pointed out that five live cartridges had been recovered near the Mandapam refugee camp near Rameshwaram yesterday, Karunanidhi quoted police reports that they were only “signal cartridges.” The state police would function in such a manner that would strengthen the security of both the state and India at large, he said, adding: “Law and order is very much under control.”

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Karunanidhi’s assertions come in the wake of protests by Congress members in the state Assembly urging the government to come down hard on pro-LTTE outfits in the state and check smuggling of materials meant for the banned terrorist group.

Replying to a two-day debate on the demands for grants for the departments of Home, Police, Prohibition and Excise coming under his charge, Karunanidhi declared in the state Assembly: “I am no supporter of the LTTE.” He warned the Tigers to keep off the Tamil Nadu coast.