No ‘secret camps’ in TN: Indian High Commission

COLOMBO: The Indian High Commission here denied a report in a Sri Lankan newspaper on Monday that ‘terrorists’ were being trained at three secret camps in Tamil Nadu, describing it “entirely erroneous”. The High Commission said in a statement that the report ‘Tigers return from India on a destabilisation mission - SL intelligence’ published in ‘The Island’ newspaper on Monday was “baseless”. “The suggestion contained in the news item regarding the training of terrorists at three secret camps in Tamil Nadu, India is entirely erroneous and baseless. “Relevant agencies of the two countries have ongoing cooperation and no such information has been brought to the notice of the Government of India,” the release said. The report said that Sri Lankan state intelligence services have received information that around 150 terrorists who underwent a special arms training at three secret camps in Tamil Nadu have returned to Sri Lanka and are hiding in the north and east to carry out a destabilisation campaign. It quoted authorities as saying that information had come to light on interrogation of three former members of the LTTE accused of hacking to death a member of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) last month in the eastern district of Trincomalee.