Protesting against India’s refusal to let a couple of boats with humanitarian aid to cross the Palk Strait to Jaffna where the Sri Lankan government has enforced hunger on the Tamils living in the peninsula, Pala Nedumaran commenced his self-imposed hunger strike on the beach of Rameswaram, Wednesday morning.

Thousands of Tamil Nadu policemen were lined along the Indian coastline as Pala Nedumaran and his supporters approached the Rameswaram beach to take a couple of boats to Jaffna, Sri Lanka, 25 miles across the sea.

The food items were collected from people in Tamil Nadu by supporters of the Tamil freedom struggle in Sri Lanka on news that the people in Jaffna were on the brink of starvation, following the government’s closure of A9, the main line of vehicular transport to the peninsula. Although the ICRC had agreed to carry the collection to Jaffna, Manmohan Singh government in India had refused permission at the instance of Sri Lanka.

Thousands of Tamils in Tamil Nadu had congregated at the beach to see the boats off, but the Tamil Nadu police was there in force to prevent departure.

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