Agencies
New Delhi: The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh today assured the Maramalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief, Mr Vaiko that India would not offer any military help to Sri Lanka and he was willing to meet 22 Tamil MPs of the island nation.

`India will not do anything that will strengthen Sri Lankan military,’’ Dr Singh assured Mr. Vaiko, who called on the Prime Minister after holding a protest demonstration outside the Sri Lankan High Commission here.

Accepting another demand of the MDMK delegation, which included its four MPs, that he meet the 22 Tamil MPs of Sri Lanka, Dr Singh said he was willing to receive the people’s representatives of the strife-torn nation if they wanted to meet him.

The MDMK delegation met the Prime Minister after holding a demonstration to protest against the military offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

During the 90-minute demonstration, they also demanded that Sri Lanka immediately pull out its forces from the Jaffna peninsula.

The MDMK delegation submitted a memorandum to Dr Singh, demanding that all medical and other humanitarian aid to Sri Lanka be routed through international organisations such as the Red Cross.

They also wanted India to give asylum to all the Tamils from Sri Lanka and raise the financial assistance to such refugees.

The meeting between Dr Singh and the MDMK delegation, held at the Prime Minister’s 7 Race Course residence, lasted about 20 minutes.

In the five-page memorandum, the MDMK urged India to ‘’insist upon the Sri Lankan government to stop forthwith the onslaught of armed forces against the Tamil and honour the sincere efforts of Norwegian government for peace talks by fulfilling the commitment’’ made by Colombo in the last round of the talks in Norway.

The party said it was a matter of ‘’grave concern’’ that Sri Lanka was acquiring enormous sophisticated weapons from Pakistan.

‘’WE understand that on August 14, 2006, two shiploads of Pakistan weapons have reached Sri Lanka. With ulterior diabolic design Sri Lanka government is hobnobbing with Pakistan. The ISI of Pakistan is operating in Sri Lanka with sinister future plans which will be detrimental to the peace and security of India, particularly Tamil Nadu,’’ it said.

Meanwhile, Nordic cease-fire monitors today accused Sri Lankan security forces of killing 17 aid workers in the north-east of the island earlier this month and subsequently covering up the incident.

The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission claimed that there was also an attempt to prevent investigations by them following the August 4 massacre of the 17 local employees of a French charity in the northeastern town of Muttur.

The Swedish-led monitors of the February 2002 cease-fire also ruled that the killings were a “gross violation” of the ceasefire by government forces.

“The killing of the 17 civilian aid workers in Muttur on the 4th of August 2006 is ruled as a gross violation of the cease-fire agreement by the Security Forces of Sri Lanka,” the monitors said.

In a statement, they said the chief monitor, Mr Ulf Henricsson had confidential discussions with “highly reliable sources” about those responsible for the killings.

“The views have not proved contradictory and the security forces of Sri Lanka are widely and consistently deemed to be responsible for the incident. Taking into consideration the fact that the security forces had been present in Muttur at the time of the incident, it appears highly unlikely to blame other groups for the killings.” The killing of the aid workers in Muttur in northeast Sri Lanka came amid heavy fighting between the rebels and the government. At least 1,500 people have been killed in fighting since December.