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'Rajiv Gandhi ordered (Indian) army to bump off LTTE chief'
IBNLIVE,India ^ | Dec 08, 2007 | Vishal Thapar

Posted on 12/07/2007 7:57:09 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki

'Rajiv Gandhi ordered army to bump off LTTE chief'

Vishal Thapar / CNN-IBN

New Delhi: A former Indian Peace Keeping Force Commander has claimed in a book that Rajiv Gandhi had ordered the killing of LTTE chief Prabhakaran at the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord in 1987, well before the hostilities had broken out in October that year.

According to the book, Intervention in Sri Lanka, the instructions for the hatchet job were conveyed by JN Dixit, India's envoy in Sri Lanka at that time.

The author, Major General Harkirat Singh, says, “I got a call from the High Commission telling me, ‘tomorrow you are meeting Prabhakran and we would like you to eliminate him.‘"

After consulting his superiors, Singh refused to carry out the orders. He says that he reasoned that cold-blooded killings were not the business of the army.

“We are an orthodox army and we do not indulge in shooting in the back,” he says.

Singh believed it would be treacherous to kill someone under the white flag. The army had been acting in good faith and perhaps had no idea that the accord was still-born.

1,300 Indian Army troops were killed in Sri Lanka in 1987. The casualties could have been lower had the army been made aware by the government that the LTTE was not a willing party to the clumsily-hustled accord.

“The surrender of the weapons was not complete,” says Singh.

Going by the book, it is clear that there was murder in the air, well before the tragic assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.

(Excerpt) Read more at ibnlive.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: india; ltte; prabhakaran; srilanka
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Prabhakaran with members of the Air Tigers (the LTTE's air force)

1 posted on 12/07/2007 7:57:12 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
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To: sukhoi-30mki
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
Rajiv Gandhi minutes before he was killed by the human bomb Subha, seen with her back to the camera and flowers in her hair (also inset).
2 posted on 12/07/2007 8:11:20 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
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To: sukhoi-30mki

If this is true then it amounts to treason on part of General Harkirat Singh.


3 posted on 12/07/2007 8:27:31 PM PST by Gengis Khan
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To: Gengis Khan
I’ll have to check my conflict history a little but it sounds like you are right. Rajiv Gandhi was dealing with so many factions and insurgents from Sri Lanka and Pakistan, drastic measures would be justified.
4 posted on 12/07/2007 8:43:07 PM PST by mnehring (..one candidate did not display any moderateness or liberalism...Fred Thompson - Rush Limbaugh)
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To: sukhoi-30mki

OK, help us out here a little:
who are/was the LTTE?


5 posted on 12/07/2007 8:46:07 PM PST by Redbob
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To: Redbob

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.They are a terrorist group fighting for a separate Tamil State within Sri Lanka against the Sinhalese led Government there-if that doesn’t work out,they want independence.They are pioneers as far as terrorism goes.They patented the modern suicide bomber,incl. the women bomber.One such women killed Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 when he was campaigning for reelection ,while another killed Sri Lanka’s president,a few years later.

They are also the only known terrorist group to have a functional ‘state’ with administration & airforce & naval components which attack Sri Lankan forces.


6 posted on 12/07/2007 8:50:19 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
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To: Redbob
Wikipedia article

They're ruthless terrorists. They all carry a vial of cyanide which they'll swallow so as not to be taken alive. They use women as suicide bombers and have no problems targeting city buses or shopping malls.

7 posted on 12/08/2007 4:54:48 AM PST by csvset
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To: sukhoi-30mki
'Rajiv Gandhi ordered (Indian) army to bump off LTTE chief'

Well, he certainly takes after Mahatma Gandhi who saw no problem with letting the heads roll in deciding a political outcome (The Gandhi Nobody Knows):
ANYONE who wants to wade through Gandhi's endless ruminations about himsa and ahimsa (violence and nonviolence) is welcome to do so, but it is impossible for the skeptical reader to avoid the conclusion--let us say in 1920, when swaraj (home rule) was all the rage and Gandhi's inner voice started telling him that ahimsa was the thing--that this inner voice knew what it was talking about. By this I mean that, though Gandhi talked with the tongue of Hindu gods and sacred scriptures, his inner voice had a strong sense of expediency. Britain, if only comparatively speaking, was a moral nation, and nonviolent civil disobedience was plainly the best and most effective way of achieving Indian independence. Skeptics might also not be surprised to learn that as independence approached, Gandhi's inner voice began to change its tune. It has been reported that Gandhi "half-welcomed" the civil war that broke out in the last days. Even a fratricidal "bloodbath" (Gandhi's word) would be preferable to the British.

And suddenly Gandhi began endorsing violence left, right, and center. During the fearsome rioting in Calcutta he gave his approval to men "using violence in a moral cause." How could he tell them that violence was wrong, he asked, "unless I demonstrate that nonviolence is more effective?" He blessed the Nawab of Maler Kotla when he gave orders to shoot ten Muslims for every Hindu killed in his state. He sang the praises of Subhas Chandra Bose, who, sponsored by first the Nazis and then the Japanese, organized in Singapore an Indian National Army with which he hoped to conquer India with Japanese support, establishing a totalitarian dictatorship. Meanwhile, after independence in 1947, the armies of the India that Gandhi had created immediately marched into battle, incorporating the state of Hyderabad by force and making war in Kashmir on secessionist Pakistan. When Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist in January 1948 he was honored by the new state with a vast military funeral--in my view by no means inapposite.

8 posted on 12/08/2007 5:05:49 AM PST by aruanan
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To: aruanan

This Gandhi is no relation to Mahatma Gandhi.

Sure Gandhi endorsed the use of violence when it suited his beliefs & interests.Like most sensible politicians.He offered unconditional support to the British war effort against the Nazis if they gave dominion status .

About supporting Subash Chandra Bose,most people will tell you that Gandhi virtually expelled Bose from the Congress party years before he tied up with the Axis.Do you seriously think that if Gandhi supported him,he wouldn’t have called for an uprising in India-which would have virtually frozen the war effort in Asia?????????Gandhi was a shrewd politician who understood Bose’s popularity,but opposed his strategies.

The fellow who wrote this piece seriously needs to do his research.Gandhi was dead months before the Indian army took Hyderabad with very little bloodshed.& The whole world knows that the Indian army was sent to Kashmir after it was invaded by Pakistan.


9 posted on 12/08/2007 6:57:35 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
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To: sukhoi-30mki
This Gandhi is no relation to Mahatma Gandhi.

Yes, but Mahatma strenuously supported her marriage to Feroze Gandhi.
10 posted on 12/08/2007 8:16:41 AM PST by aruanan
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To: sukhoi-30mki
This Gandhi is no relation to Mahatma Gandhi.

Through adoption by Mahatma of Feroze Khan who later married his mother Indira?
11 posted on 12/08/2007 8:20:05 AM PST by aruanan
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To: aruanan

Dude,Feroze Gandhi was a Parsi(ie. of Iranian origin)-he was not a Muslim.He had no relationship to Gandhi other than that of a Congress Activist.Even if Big G had opposed Indira’s marriage,the woman would have been gutsy enough to go ahead on her own.


12 posted on 12/08/2007 8:38:02 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
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To: sukhoi-30mki

Who said Feroze was a Muslim?


13 posted on 12/08/2007 8:57:59 AM PST by aruanan
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To: aruanan

The theory floating around with some conspiracy buffs who hate the Nehru-Gandhis is that Feroze belonged to a Muslim family-with MK Gandhi adopting him later.


14 posted on 12/08/2007 8:59:59 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
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To: aruanan

& BTW,Khan is a Muslim surname.


15 posted on 12/08/2007 9:00:24 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
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To: sukhoi-30mki
The theory floating around with some conspiracy buffs who hate the Nehru-Gandhis is that Feroze belonged to a Muslim family-with MK Gandhi adopting him later.

I don't know anything about these conspiracy buffs. And my favorite Khan was Ustad Allarakha Khan. I got to see him play with Ravi Shankar.
16 posted on 12/08/2007 9:11:45 AM PST by aruanan
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To: sukhoi-30mki

Looks like the programming staff at Oracle


17 posted on 12/08/2007 9:14:12 AM PST by Regulator (Cute Uniforms, too. Someday soon the Sunnyvale cops will be wearing them...)
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To: aruanan

Where did you get the ‘Feroze Khan’ part(post 11)??Just curious.The only Feroze Khan I know of is an obnoxious out of work Hindi film actor!!


18 posted on 12/08/2007 9:14:18 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
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To: sukhoi-30mki
Where did you get the ‘Feroze Khan’ part(post 11)??Just curious.The only Feroze Khan I know of is an obnoxious out of work Hindi film actor!!

From an online biography of Rajiv Gandhi that led me to Indira Gandhi that led me to Feroze Gandhi.
19 posted on 12/08/2007 9:28:33 AM PST by aruanan
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To: aruanan

The thing about places like Yahoo answers is that I can write that Feroze Gandhi’s original name was Feroze Bush & folks would believe that!!


20 posted on 12/08/2007 9:31:37 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
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