• 15 December 1987, Tamil Times

Dear Mr. Gandhi,

This letter is addressed to you in your dual role as Prime Minister of India and a son whose mother was murdered by uniformed assassins.

Despite your privileged position, I am sure you too would have suffered and are probably yet suffering from the trauma of your mother's death.

Love and affection for our near and dear ones, especially parents and children is something that is common to all mankind and which is developed at birth and felt throughout life.

I am writing this letter as a son and a brother, whose mother and younger brother were callously murdered by the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) on the 16th October 1987 at Navatkuli, Jaffna.

When I arrived they were being eaten by dogs and crows. Their remains would have yet been outside their home had not the Sri Lankan army and air force helped me to get to the spot on the seventh day and cremate the remains.

My mother was sixty-five years old and has given birth to seven children and reared them through years ofhardship and personal deprivation. We children are what we are today largely on account of the sacrifices made by her. There are very few mothers anywhere today who could have suffered more than she did to bring up her seven children as decent human beings.

I built the house in Navatkuli, Jaffna, five years back for her to live in comfort. The house was a token of the gratitude I felt for what she had done for us.

The IPKF has made this very same house her grave! My borther, who was 38 years old, was a leading citizen of Jaffna and married five years and had two children aged two and a half and a year respectively.

He had foregone several opportunities to leave Sri Lanka in order to be near our mother. My brother has paid the ultimate penalty for having loved his mother and concern for her welfare. How can his young widow and two small children be consoled now? This is a tragedy that will not be forgotten forgenerations to come.

The fact that both these lives were ended without any rational reason and in a brutal manner and their bodies not accorded the respect due to even hapless beggars on the streets, is absolutely unpardonable.

The fact that they were shot point blank at close range without any questions being asked, under the portico of their house, speaks volumes for the brutality and utter disregard for human life displayed by the Indian army.

The right to life, inherent in all the convenants on human rights talked about today, has been brazenly violated in this instance. How an army representing what is in reality a Hindu India (Mahatma Ghandhi's India!) could sink to such low depths is beyond my comprehension.

Why has human life become so cheap?

Ironically, the very same Sri Lankan armed forces we Tamils had hitherto

considered our enemies showed their Buddhist cultural heritage - compassion and brotherhood - when the Indian forces that had entered Sri Lanka as the defenders of the Tamils had turned into their very killers.

I will be eternally grateful for the compassionate manner in which the Sri Lankan forces came to my assistance when it was most needed. What I have seen in my own house and the neighbourhood is proof enough of the murderous intent of the Indian army and the immoral manner in which it has carried out its crusade against the L.T.T.E. in Jaffna.

No amount of press censorship and propaganda could put a lid on the facts for long and the trauma of what has transpired cannot be erased from the collective memory of the Tamils, by your free food and medicine. . .

My mother and brother had survived four years of near civil war and had continued to live in the same house despite its proximity to the Sri Lankan army camp. However, they had to die a death even stray dogs do not deserve, at the hands of the Indian forces that had come to ensure their safety.

What makes the whole episode allthe more nauseating is the fact that these murders were carried out apparently to enable the Indian soldiers to loot the house of its valuables!! The missing stereo system and colour television testify to this.

The house had been ransacked for money and jewels and my inability to find any money in the house during my visit attests to this fact. The location of the house in a sparsely populated area, the appearance of the house and the age and social background of the inmates would have indicated to anyone with even a modicum of intelligence that my mother and brother did not constitute a threat to the IPKF. The murders had in fact been committed two days after the IPKF had assured them their safety!!

I can comprehend the finality of death and the impossibility of bringing the dead alive by even the Prime Minister of India. However, I hope this letter will serve the purpose of preventing any more wanton deaths of innocent Tamils, at the hands of the IPKF.

R. Narendran, Ph.D., Associate Professor
and, an unconsolable son and brother.College of Agriculture, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia.