India seeks help to probe Tiger links

India has sought Sri Lanka's help to investigate possible links between the island's Tamil Tiger rebels and politicians in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, reports here said yesterday.

New Delhi, which sought the extradition of Sri Lanka's top Tamil Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran in June 1995, had a team of officials visiting Colombo last month for routine follow up action, officials and diplomats said.

The Sunday Times said the Indian team "reviewed an earlier request" that Delhi had made for the extradition of Prabhakaran, wanted in connection with the 1991 assassination of former Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi.

However, another private newspaper, the Sunday Leader, quoted Sri Lankan Attorney General K.C. Kamalasabayson as saying that Indian officials had not specifically asked for Prabhakaran's extradition this time.

Kamalasabayson said the Indians wanted to interview a member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) identified as "Nixon" who is currently in police custody here. Calling for extradition was "a formal procedural exercise and was not a specific request made during the team's visit," Kamalasabayson was quoted as saying.

The extradition of Prabhakaran will remain an academic question as long as the 46-year-old rebel leader remains at large. He is believed to be somewhere in the island's northeast. The LTTE was recently under the spotlight in India for its alleged involvement in the abduction of India film icon Rajkumar by Tamil Nadu brigand Veerappan.

The reports of Prabhakaran's possible extradition appeared as the government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga attempted to open talks with the LTTE in a bid to end decades of ethnic bloodshed.

Norway's peace envoy to Sri Lanka, Erik Solheim, had a rare meeting with Prabhakaran in the north of the country on November 1, a move that the international community has welcomed as a significant development.

India's Home Minister L. K. Advani told the upper house of the Indian parliament last week that a high-level India mission visited Colombo in mid November "to clear formalities" for his extradition. The Sunday Leader said that India re-opening the case of Prabhakaran's extradition could be a subtle move to sabotage the peace process.

"The Indian minister's statement, coming on the heels of the Norwegian peace initiative, is viewed as a subtle move to thwart the peace process in Sri Lanka by sending a message to Prabhakaran that he will have to face a charge of murder if he enters the democratic mainstream and starts negotiations with the government," it said.

Norway entered the scene to broker peace after both Colombo and the LTTE invited Oslo to play the role of facilitator to arrange talks between the two sides.