Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated in a suicide bombing in India; the LTTE is implicated and later apologies for the “monumental historical tragedy”.
Sources
Fear grips Sri Lankans in South India, New York Times, 31 May 1991; Bomb kills India’s former leader Rajiv Gandhi, BBC.
Extracts from New York Times article
“Gandhi was killed in a bomb blast in a rural temple town southwest of Madras. The unidentified woman who detonated the bomb was believed to be a member of a guerrilla group seeking a separate state in northeast Sri Lanka.
“Almost as soon as word spread that Mr. Gandhi’s suspected killer was a Tamil militant from Sri Lanka, the relatively small Sri Lankan Tamil exile population has been seized with fear.
“Subramaniam Sivanandam, a former port superintendent in Colombo who came to India in 1982, shook his head solemnly and said: “There has been some violence. They have pelted our shops with stones. And there are little things that affect us. People don’t serve you at the food counter. A cyclo driver refuses to take you. People say nasty words on the street.”
“There are an estimated 210,000 Sri Lankan Tamils in Tamil Nadu state, of whom 115,000 are in Government-supported refugee camps, with the rest living mostly in the Madras area.
“Since the assassination, Vazhapadi Ramamurthy, the president of the Congress Party in the state of Tamil Nadu, and a key political ally, a highly popular woman known only as Jayalalitha who is running for Chief Minister here, have demanded the deportation of all Sri Lankan Tamils from this state of at least 50 million people. They said Sri Lankan militants have ruined peace-loving Tamil Nadu.
“The comments embarrassed some national Congress Party officials, partly because India has traditionally opened its doors to refugees, like the Sri Lankan Tamils, fleeing violence and persecution.”
“As far as that event is concerned, I would say it is a great tragedy, a monumental historical tragedy, which we deeply regret, and we call upon the government of India and people of India to be magnanimous to put the past behind and to approach the ethnic question in a different perspective…We have made pledges to the government of India that under no circumstance will we act against the interests of the government of India.” Balasingham, LTTE’s chief negotiator, speaking on 27 June 2006.
Related events
14 May 1992
27 June 2006
