By IANS,
Chennai : A computer operator Thursday attempted self-immolation here, outside a building housing central government offices, to draw attention to the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka, police said.
M. Muthu Kumaran, 26, was admitted to a government hospital in a serious condition with 95 percent burns.
According to police sources, Kumaran, who works for a PMK-owned Tamil periodical, said: “the attempt was to open the eyes of the central and state governments to the burning issue of Lankan Tamils”.
Hailing from Tuticorin in southern Tamil Nadu, some 500 km south of Chennai, Kumaran has been working in the state capital for the past six months, the sources added.
Hospital sources said the chances of his recovery were bleak.
Meanwhile, opposition legislators belonging to the Communist Party of India, MDMK and VCK staged a walkout of the Tamil Nadu assembly Thursday over the Lankan Tamil tangle.
As a prelude to their protest, the parties termed the recently concluded visit of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to Sri Lanka “unproductive”.