The village of Kolathur, 11 km from the Mettur dam in Salem district, was one of the places in Tamil Nadu where the cadre of the LTTE were imparted armed training in the early 1980s to fight the Sri Lankan forces.
The 1983 riots in Sri Lanka brought the ethnic issue into a sharp focus, and the island nation was unable to deal with the anti-Tamil violence effectively. This was a cause for grave concern to the Indian government. The public sentiments in Tamil Nadu turned strong, resulting in a forceful demand for India’s military intervention.
At that juncture, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi decided to offer military training to the cadre of different Tamil militant groups. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran, too, supported the move, political observers and people familiar with those developments recall.
The camps were held from 1984 in various parts of the country, including Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh, to train the militants in the use of modern arms. The camps were under the control of the Central agencies. However, the Union government claimed that they were meant to train the militants in self-defence. The largest LTTE camp was located at Kumbarapatti in Kolathur.
