India extends ban on Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger terrorists group

The government of India has extended the ban on Sri Lanka's Tami Tiger terrorist organization Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) saying that it is necessary to declare the group as an 'unlawful association' since it continues to adopt a strong anti-India posture and pose a grave threat to the security of its citizens.
"LTTE continues to adopt a strong anti-India posture and also continues to pose a grave threat to the security of Indian nationals, it is necessary to declare LTTE as an 'unlawful association' with immediate effect," the joint secretary of India's Home Ministry Dharmendra Sharma said in notification. "The activities of LTTE are detrimental to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India and there is a continuing strong need to control all such separatist activities by all possible means," the statement further noted. The Indian government declared the LTTE a banned organization in 1994 after an LTTE suicide bomber assassinated former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. Sri Lanka comprehensively defeated the terrorist group in the country three years ago in May 2009 and ended the 30-year long terrorism in the country, but the supporters of the terrorist group in Tamil Nadu state of India, certain European countries including the UK, France, and Canada have been actively involved in attempts to revive the group. "Separatist Tamil chauvinist and pro-LTTE groups continue to foster a separatist tendency among the masses and trying to enhance the support base for LTTE in India, particularly in Tamil Nadu, which will ultimately have a strong disintegrating influence over the territorial integrity of India," the Home Ministry has noted . "The diaspora continue to spread through articles in the Internet portals, anti-India feeling amongst the Sri Lankan Tamils by holding the top Indian political leaders and bureaucrats responsible for the defeat of the LTTE," the notification has said. The activities of pro-LTTE organizations and individuals have come to notice of the government that despite of the ban in force, attempts have been made by these forces to extend their support to the LTTE. " LTTE's objective for a separate homeland (Tamil Eelam) for all Tamils threatens the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India and amounts to cession from the Union and thus falls the ambit of unlawful activities," the Home Ministry has said.