Student protests demanding justice for war crimes in Sri Lanka gathered momentum across Tamil Nadu on Monday, with class boycotts, fasts and demonstrations being reported from various cities and towns.
The protests intensified after eight students of Loyola College here, who were on an indefinite fast since Friday, were taken into police custody in the early hours.
Students in about 25 colleges in the State abstained from classes, accusing Sri Lanka of targeting innocent Tamils during the war against the LTTE. There were reports of relay fasts in at least 14 places.
Demonstrations or processions were held to demand that India vote against Sri Lanka in the ongoing UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva. Some students belonging to government arts and law colleges burnt effigies of Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Police said they had scaled up security arrangements for Sri Lankan establishments in Chennai.
In Chennai, students said the arrest of their fasting friends was totally unanticipated as it was a non-violent protest, but the police maintained that they had to step in because the fast was creating law and order problems. Nearly 40 of their supporters were taken to a community hall in Arumbakkam and held there till Monday morning. Students from several city colleges thronged Royapettah Hospital, where protesters whose fast was aborted were administered glucose. By 5 p.m. on Monday, the students were discharged from the hospital.
“We have decided to end our protest because it has created enough awareness among other students. Now, we will look for other ways to protest against the injustice by the Sri Lankan government,” said a protester.
Groups of students also protested in Presidency College, while 15 students of Ambedkar Government Arts College started a fast on Monday evening with 200 supporters. Students from St. Joseph’s College, Tiruchi, St. Xavier’s College, Palayamkottai, Government Law College, Tirunelveli, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli, Government Arts College, Coimbatore and two youths in Tirupur began indefinite fasts. Class boycotts and other forms of protest were reported from Coimbatore, Erode, Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri and Mannargudi.
Keywords: Student protests, war crimes, Sri Lanka
No one is perfect as the fumbling justice prevailing around the
world.
It is obvious that the students reportedly protesting demanding
justice for war crimes in Sri Lanka takes matters too lightly. Of
course, this distraction can not be decried given the political
bungling of the struggle of the ethnic tamils for rights that would
enable them to live in dignity with security to their living areas
against settlement of Sinhalese to erode into their strength and
weaken them politically and to their language and religion, within a
united Sri Lanka , as created and gifted to the people of the island,
by the colonial powers, for over fifty years by the Indian government
in New Delhi and the political parties in Tamil Naadu, in particular
DMK and AIADMK. But be it war crimes or a Referendum by the Tamils (
for Thamizh Eezham) they are too complicated matters. It is not
going to be a movement for a short time as the Anti-Hindi agitation
of the 60s of the last century of which I was part to fight against
the move to eliminate English. Be careful friends
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