India concerned over LTTE explosives smuggling

INDIA: Massive smuggling of explosive material from India to Sri Lanka by the Tigers has raised serious concerns here, with one official warning the problem may be bigger than previously thought of.

Indian security agencies have in recent months seized, mainly from Tamil Nadu and off its winding coastline, a huge quantity as well as variety of stuff that can be used to make lethal explosives and also arrested several suspects.

The seizures have sparked some alarm in Tamil Nadu, whose Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi has declared he would not tolerate any illegal activity even as he sympathized with Sri Lanka's Tamil community. But home ministry officials here say that Tamil Nadu needs to do much more to ensure that those covertly assisting the LTTE in smuggling out explosive substances from the state are put out of business.

"We feel the magnitude of the problem is bigger than what it was thought to be," a senior official told IANS here. "It is clear more than one network is operating in Tamil Nadu.

Just how many, we don't know. It is disturbing."A previous Karunanidhi Government was sacked by New Delhi in 1991 following reports of widespread LTTE presence in the state. LTTE activities in the state virtually ended in the wake of a crackdown that followed the May 1991 assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi near Chennai.

They picked up from the latter part of the 90s but never reached the levels of the 1980s.

The Sri Lankan Navy seized some 60,000 detonators from the sea on its way from Tamil Nadu in January 2006. In November, a large quantity of boosters to produce explosives was found in Tamil Nadu's Sivaganga district from a van that met with a road accident.

India Abroad News Service