Sri Lankan monk attacked in Chennai

Tamil activists Monday assaulted a Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka at a railway station here while Anna University ordered an indefinite closure of all colleges owing to student protests.

The monk was chased and assaulted when he went the to central railway station as part of a Sri Lankan tourist group. Police came to his rescue and escorted him to safety.

It was the second such attack in Tamil Nadu. Earlier, a Sri Lankan monk was attacked at Thanjavur, 350 km from here. Students across Tamil Nadu again protested Monday against the Sri Lankan government. In Coimbatore, several engineering college students took to the streets.

Police took into custody several slogan-shouting students who tried to picket Raj Bhavan in Chennai. With the student protests spreading, Anna University ordered an indefinite closure of all its affiliated colleges and student hostels in the state.

A university official told IANS that there are 617 colleges affiliated to the varsity in Tamil Nadu with around 700,000 students. The South Indian Artists Association, popularly known as South Indian Nadigar Sangam, Monday urged the Indian government to amend the US-sponsored anti-Sri Lanka resolution at the UNHRC in line with a resolution passed by the Tamil Nadu assembly in 2011.

In a statement, the association expressed solidarity with those protesting against the Sri Lankan government: "The Indian government should take necessary steps to amend the US resolution against Sri Lanka to include the features of the resolution passed by the Tamil Nadu assembly."

In 2011, the Tamil Nadu assembly passed an unanimous resolution urging the government to discuss with other countries and impose economic sanctions on Sri Lanka and bring to book those who allegedly committed war crimes in the war against the Tamil Tigers.