Karunanidhi deprecates Manmohan Singh's stand on Sri Lankan war crimes, praises David Cameron's strong moves

Chennai: Conti­nuing his tirade against India’s participation in the Commonwealth summit in Colombo, DMK supremo M. Karunanidhi on Tue­sday deprecated Prime Mi­nister Manmohan Si­ngh’s response to the alleged war crimes by Sri Lanka unlike the strong stand spelt out by Britain.

Though Singh skipped the meet without giving reason, India was represented by External Affairs Minister Salman Khur­shid’s team and did nothing on the Tamils issue, unlike British Prime Minister David Cameron, who set March as deadline for Sri Lanka to complete probe into human rights violations, Karunanidhi said in his ‘letter to partymen’ titled ‘The England Prime Minister and Our Prime Minister’ in DMK organ Murasoli.

He said the people of Tamil Nadu had expected Prime Minister Man­mo­han Singh to act just as his British counterpart did.

The DMK chief took a dig at Khurshid for his failure to visit Tamil-speaking areas like Cameron did. “The only highlight of CHOGM was the global attention received by Cameron, who now finds a place in the hearts of Tamils living all over the world including in Tamil Nadu.”

“The same accolade and adulation would have been available to Indian Prime Minister also. (you) know when? If India had ann­ounced that not just Prime Minister but even a speck from India will not participate in the event,” he said.

Pointing out that even China, Sri Lanka’s 'friendly country’ had asked Colo­mbo to make efforts to protect human rights, Karunanidhi asked, “Did our External Affairs Min­ister open his mouth?”