Students march on Lankan issue
Tiruchirapalli, Mar 20 : Tension prevailed in Tiruchirapalli and its suburbs today as students from various colleges marched through important thorough fares of the city and staged demonstration in front of central government offices, including 117 infantry battalion, on the Sri Lankan Tamils Issue.
They were demanding that Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa be brought to book as a "war criminal" for alleged genocide of Tamils.
The police, escorted the students.
This affected vehicular traffic in several parts of the city causing severe hardship to the public.
The students of a private engineering college also took out a procession from Annal Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital to the collectorate and submitted a memorandum to the district collector. Later they dispersed.
The movement of petroleum products from the Indian Oil Corporation's (IOC) regional storage point at Valavandankottai, was suspended today as private tanker lorry crew members resorted to a flash strike.
Inmates of the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees camp at Alavandankottai and Kottapattu observed day-long fast in their camps, protesting against the US allegedly diluting its resolution against Lanka to be introduced in UNHRC.
A group of students also burnt the effigy of Mr Rajapaksa in front of the district Congress headquarters here and shouted slogans against Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singhh and other Congress leaders.
A few other Tamil organisations also observed day-long fast in different parts of the city and its suburbs, police said.