The Central government has extended the ban on the Sri Lanka-based militant and political organisation Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for another five years, a notification on Tuesday said.
The step was taken under sub-sections (1) and (3) of section 3 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (37 of 1967) with immediate effect.
Advertisement
A notification issued by the Union Home ministry stated that the LTTE’s continued violent and disruptive activities are prejudicial to the integrity and sovereignty of India.
The group continues to adopt a strong anti-India posture as also continues to pose a grave threat to the security of Indian nationals, the Ministry said.
India had banned the LTTE after the assassination of Gandhi in 1991. The ban on the group was last extended for five years in 2014.
The LTTE, a terror outfit based in Sri Lanka but having its supporters, sympathisers and agents in India, came up in 1976.
Even after its military defeat in May 2009 in Sri Lanka, LTTE has not abandoned the concept of ‘Eelam’ and has been clandestinely working towards this cause by undertaking fundraising and propaganda activities, and the remnant LTTE leaders or cadres have also initiated efforts to regroup the scattered activists and resurrect the outfit locally and internationally, the Home Ministry said.
The separatist Tamil chauvinist groups and pro-LTTE groups continue to foster a separatist tendency amongst the masses and enhance the support base for the group in India and particularly in Tamil Nadu, it said.
It will ultimately have a strong disintegrating influence over the territorial integrity of India, hence, the strong need continues to exist to control all such separatist activities by all possible lawful means, the notification said.
(With PTI inputs)
