Anti-Lanka protests intensify in TN as youth immolates self

Protests against Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, condemning his regime’s “war-crimes” against the Tamils, intensified across Tamil Nadu (TN) on Monday as a youth self-immolated himself.

Lawyers boycotted courts and hundreds of protestors led by MDMK chief Vaiko courted arrest while trying to lay siege to the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commission (SLDHC) here.

While marching towards the SLDHC, Vaiko, along with Tamil Nationalist Movement leader P Nedumaran and over 500 activists of pro-Tamil parties and groups demanded “an independent multi-national probe into war crimes” by Sri Lankan security forces in the final days of their war against the LTTE in May 2009.

Protests erupted as the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) meeting began at Geneva to consider a US resolution against Sri Lanka’s human rights violations in the backdrop of the latest expose by the UK’s “Channel 4”.

The video clips of slain LTTE Chief V Prabhakaran’s son Balachandran suggests that he was brutally killed by the Lankan Army and not in a cross-fire. “Only an independent international enquiry can ascertain the truth and the UNHRC meet should consider this demand,” the MDMK chief said.

Vaiko, Nedumaran and several others were arrested by the police and were later let off in the evening, sources said.

Elsewhere, protests turned gory as Mani, a youth from Cuddalore district, immolated himself in front of the Collectorate. He was critically injured and was rushed to the government hospital in Chennai but later succumbed to the burns.

In a “dying declaration”, Mani urged authorities to bring Sri Lanka “to book for its war-crimes against the Tamils,” and that “India should help in creation of an independent Tamil state.”

At some places like Salem, Law students joined in the protests to burn effigies of Rajapaksa. In Coimbatore, there were reports of protestors attacking a furniture shop.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to immediately intervene and urge the Sri Lankan Authorities to release the 16 fishermen from TN arrested on Sunday, “without filing any cases against them”.