9 October 2010 12:52 pm
The sooner they are rehabilitated and allowed to return to their places, the better it would be to enable them pursue their normal life, Karunanidhi said in a memorandum submitted to Sonia at the airport here during her brief stopover en route to Puducherry and Tiruchirapalli.
Referring to the recent visit of Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao to Sri Lanka, Karunanidhi said she herself had put the number of war-displaced Tamils in camps at 30,000 and said the figure could, "in all likelihood", be more.
"The Sri Lankan government must be urged to start the political process without further delay," he said.
"In as much as the hapless Sri Lankan Tamils continue to suffer in the camps for the last 18 months, there must be some firm political commitment to end the sufferings of these people."
"I, therefore, request you to impress upon the Government of India to urge the government of Sri Lanka to rehabilitate the people now in the camps and bring an end to their untold misery," he said in the memorandum.
Later, he told reporters that his meeting with Sonia was a "brief one".
Karunanidhi was accompanied by some of his cabinet colleagues, including son and Deputy Chief Minister M K Stalin, and his grandnephew, Union Textiles Minister Dayanidhi Maran. (Sifynews)