800 people taken into custody near Tirupati for Sri Lankan president's visit

Reported by Uma Sudhir, Edited by Samira Shaikh February 08, 2013 13

Hyderabad: Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse was greeted by protestors today in Bodh Gaya in Bihar, where he visited Buddhist temples. In cities that he did not tour, including Delhi and Chennai, large demonstrations were held against his two-day personal visit to India, with protestors demanding that he be held accountable for alleged atrocities against Sri Lankan Tamils, who are a minority in his country.

Mr Rajapakse will offer his prayers at the famous Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh early tomorrow morning. He has landed near Tirupati with a delegation of 62 people that includes his family. He will travel by road to the temple. 800 people in the Chittoor district, where the temple is located, just 135 kms from Chennai, have been taken into preventive custody; they were reportedly planning large protests.

Political parties in Tamil Nadu say that the Sri Lankan government repeatedly violates human rights of its Tamilian population, and is reneging on an earlier commitment for autonomy for Tamil-dominated areas.

In Chennai, DMK chief M Karuanidhi addressed a gathering of 3,000 party workers along with other A-listers from his party, including his son, MK Stalin, his daughter M Kanimozhi and former union minister A Raja. In a speech, Mr Stalin, who is the treasurer of the DMK, said that the Sri Lankan president has "blood-stained hands." (Read: Karunanidhi leads protests against Sri Lankan president's visit)

In Delhi, Vaiko, the head of the MDMK, was were today detained when he, along with supporters, tried to march towards the Prime Minister's residence in protest against Mr Rajapaskse's visit.

Last year, at the United Nations Human Rights Council session in Geneva, India supported a resolution, sponsored by the US, for 'promoting reconciliation and accountability' in Sri Lanka after its army won a 26-year-long civil war by defeating the rebel Tamil Tigers.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had been warned that if India did not vote against Sri Lanka, the DMK would pull out of the government. Sri Lanka's Tamils have long complained of persecution by successive governments.

President pays homage to Mahabodhi Temple at Bodhgaya

February 8, 2013

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President Mahinda Rajapaksa, currently on a visit to India, offered prayers at the famed Buddhist holy shrine of Mahabodhi Temple at Bodhgaya in the eastern state of Bihar on Friday.

Incidentally, this visit also happens to be a sort of pilgrimage for the President since he has desired not to make this official as he would not be visiting India’s national capital New Delhi.

Earlier in the day, Rajapaksa met Chief Minister of the eastern state of Bihar Nitish Kumar and a host of other officials.
Apart from the Mahabodhi Temple, Rajapaksa’s two-day long visit also includes a visit to the famous Tirupati temple in southern India of Andhra Pradesh, before he leaves on Saturday.
The President’s visit witnessed protests by pro-Tamil outfits in Chennai.
The regional Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) party staged a mass rally in New Delhi to protest against the genocide of the minority Tamil population in the island nation during the civil war, which ended in 2009.
Sri Lanka has rejected a UN report that more than 70,000 civilians were unaccounted for when its war with Tamil Tiger rebels ended in 2009, calling its findings “erroneous and replete with conjecture and bias”.
Released on 14 November 2012, the report said the United Nations failed to call proper attention to the plight of hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankan civilians during the bloody final stage of the three-decade war.
The report cited an earlier estimate of 40,000 civilians killed in crossfire between Government and rebel forces after they were trapped on a sliver of coastline.
The UN report reinvigorated calls from human rights groups and expatriate ethnic Tamils for an international investigation into suspected war crimes towards the end of the conflict with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Sri Lanka’s Government has repeatedly rejected allegations that it committed war crimes and also rejected suggestions in the report that it had intimidated UN officials.
The war ended with the LTTE’s defeat in May 2009.
– Pix by Sudath Silva