By IANS,
New Delhi : India said Tuesday it will “engage” with Sri Lanka on a UN report that found credible allegations of war crimes both by government forces and the Tamil tigers.
The external affairs ministry said New Delhi had seen the report of the experts appointed by the UN Secretary General on accountability issues in the context of the end of the war in Sri Lanka in 2009.
“The issues raised in the report need to be studied carefully. As a first step, we intend to engage with the government of Sri Lanka on the issues contained in the report,” said ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash.
According to the report, “most civilian casualties in the final phases of the war were caused by government shelling” as the military sought to crush the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka’s north.
The panel’s report indicates that the government conducted large-scale shelling in “No Fire Zones,” including a UN hub, food distribution lines, and “systematically shelled hospitals on the frontlines”.
Colombo Tuesday rejected the report as baseless.