|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
MALDIVES SAY INDIAN REACTION TO SEND RECONSSAINNCE AIRCRAFT TO HELP ENGAGE LTTE BOAT WAS QUICK AND SWIFTBy Walter JayawardhanaThe Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom has telephoned Indian
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to thank for Indian naval aircrafts
quick response in providing reconnaissance for the countrys
Coast Guard to help engage the high jacked Indian fishing trawler
Sri Krishna and sink it with an alleged load of LTTE guns
and rocket launchers. The Indian response for help to pursue the hijacked boat by the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been described by the Maldivian government
as quick and swift. Indias Tribune newspaper publishing an agency item quoted Maldivian
Foreign Minister Ahamed Shaheed as saying, We asked for
the Indian government's assistance, and, the response
was swift. The Maldivian government used its coast guard ship Huravee
to engage the allegedly gun running hijacked Sri Krishna
trawler that attempted twice to leave the territorial waters of the
Maldives. The renamed Huravee is a former Indian coast
guard ship given to the Maldives and its former name was INS Tillanchang.
The transfer took place last year when Indian Defense Minister visited
Maldives . Now it has been revealed four of Sri Krishans occupants were
killed when it was engaged by Huravee and five survived including
the kidnapped Kerala based Malayali boat mechanic Simon Soza, whom
the alleged LTTE gunrunners took with them in their long illegal sojourn.
Tamil-speaking persons who hijacked Sri Krishna first
threw out its fishing equipment and later brought in arms including
AK-47s and RPG launchers. Soza, who is from is a Malayalam speaking
person from Kerala, had reportedly told the Maldivian authorities
that he was kept on board because he was the trawlers mechanic,
someone very essential in the long journey undertaken by the pirates
of the Sea Tigers. He was one of the first to jump from the boat to
the sea when the boat was being pursued and rescued by the Coastguard
ship. A team of investigators from the Sri Lanka navy also has traveled
to the capital Male where the alleged LTTE Sea Tigers are in custody
to investigate what actually the boat was doing in the Maldivian waters. In the sting operations conducted by the FBI undercover agents in
the United States it had been revealed that the LTTE was planning
to ship its arms shipments to the Indian Ocean and from there to smuggle
them to Sri Lanka in smaller vessels. During the regime of Ranil Wickremesinghe , when a lie low policy was advised to the Sri Lanka Navy larger ships came closer to the LTTE dominated shores to unload cargos of armaments and explosives. Thereafter the LTTE has been increasingly engaging fishing craft re-loaded from other ships in mid seas to smuggle in arms. |
||||||||||||
|
Disclaimer Copyright
© 1997-2004 www.lankaweb.Com
Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved. |