By IANS,
Chennai : Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi said Friday night that India could certainly intervene in Sri Lanka to alleviate the sufferings of Tamil minorities there, in the same way it did in then East Pakistan in 1971.
“Did India not intervene in Bangladesh when needed?”, the DMK chief told reporters when asked how India could intervene in the affairs of a foreign nation. He was referring to the 1971 India-Pakistan war that led to the creation of a separate nation of Bangladesh.
Karunanidhi was speaking to media persons after 14 party Lok Sabha MPs, including central ministers T.R. Baalu and A. Raja, handed over post-dated resignation letters to him demanding an end to the violence in Sri Lanka.
“The decision about the resignations will be taken finally on oct 28, if the situation does not improve,” the veteran leader said.
The resignations came even as the central government asked Sri Lanka to halt its military offensive against the Tamil Tigers in the island nation.
Earlier in the evening, the ruling DMK had announced that four of its Rajya Sabha MPs had submitted post-dated resignation letters to Karunanidhi on the issue.
A party spokesperson said: “We have great faith in the United Progressive Alliance leadership at the centre and hope the suffering of our brethren in the island will end soon.”
Karunanidhi’s daughter and Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi had handed her resignation letter to her father Tuesday.
Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry together have 40 members in the Lok Sabha – all of who have offered to quit if the government fails to take action on the Sri Lankan issue.
Lawyers in Coimbatore burnt an effigy of Union Defence Minister A.K. Antony within the court premises earlier in the day, alleging a conspiracy by bureaucrats of Kerala origin to keep the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka on tenterhooks.
The protesting lawyers burnt copies of The Hindu newspaper, which carried an interview Friday by Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa saying that he was committed to a “just and enduring political solution” to the festering problem. The lawyers alleged that major newspapers in the country were ignoring the “just demands” of the minority Tamils in Sri Lanka.