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The Rediff Interview/K Mohandas

'These people thought like Indian politicians, Prabhakaran also could be lured by the offer of a chief ministership!'

What happened after you conveyed your concern about the law and order situation in the state to the intelligence agencies in Delhi?

I got a message on the 4th of November 1986, from the home ministry saying that SAARC was going to take place in Bangalore and they were worried because Jayewardane was coming. See, when they want protection, they ask. Otherwise, they will keep quiet. They wanted the police and security authorities in Tamil Nadu to ensure very stringent security arrangements for the SAARC summit.

The message particularly stated that a watch should be kept on likely movements of the Sri Lankan militants (laughs) towards Bangalore as they might make an attempt to cause physical harm to Jayewardane.Their message also stated that the IB must be requested to furnish details of the militant group activities to the DGP. So, it revealed that this information was till then not conveyed to the DGP (laughs once again). Another catch is that it was not the IB which was dealing with the activities of the militant groups by RAW! Their right hand apparently did not know what the left was doing.

The next day MGR summoned me and straightaway asked me to disarm the Sri Lankan militants based in Tamil Nadu. I told the chief minister it was an almost impossible task in view of the sophisticated weapons known to be in possession of the militants. I felt it was a matter that should be handled by the army or paramilitary forces. I also told him that it was politically unwise for the TN government to take such an action as the matter involved a foreign country.

MGR told me the Centre was reluctant to use the army or paramilitary forces. Because in the event of an armed confrontation, there would be an international reaction to it. MGR further asked me to somehow disarm them as he had given his word to the PM. I told MGR that I had to think about it and formulate a plan which would be least risky to the police officers and men to be involved in the exercise. He asked me not to inform the IB or RAW about the information and also that top state officials like the chief secretary and home secretary were to be kept in the dark.

Why did he want to keep it a secret from them?

Somebody told him it should be top secret! I told him I would not be in a position to tell even him (MGR) as to when and how I proposed to strike. He agreed with his usual thumbs up sign. I had a sleepless night thinking about the suicidal task. Finally I thought of a plan with a large dose of psychological input which I thought might work with a good amount of luck.

The operation was slated for the early hours of November 8. I sent small groups of policemen to go to the militants camp commander and assure him of all help. See, it was the small fellows who were involved in all the shootouts. So, the policemen told the commander, ‘When everyone is helping you, why do you want to shoot at ordinary people? Let us keep all your weapons safely in one place for a while so nobody will have access to your weapons. You lock the room and keep the key.’ Can you believe, all of them fell into the trap?

Within 400 metres of each camp, I had specially trained commandos waiting and they were directly in touch with me. The moment the weapons were kept inside a room, the jeeps of the commandos went right inside the camp and seized all the weapons. We disarmed everyone, including Prabhakaran.

How did MGR react?

He said, 'Hmmmmm. Oh, did you do it? How many died?’ This was not the way to ask. I didn’t like it. He also thought we would not do it.

That evening we were sitting in my room with my lieutenants. All the arms were spread there. I got a call from Delhi. It was A P Venkateswaran, the foreign secretary. He said he was speaking from the PM’s room and the prime minister wanted to know why they (the militants) were let free. He asked why they were not arrested? I said, instructions were only given to disarm them and not arrest them.

He said, ‘put all these people, including Prabhakaran under house arrest’. I told him, ‘I cannot take orders from you’. He gave the phone to MGR who was also in the room. I checked, in the meanwhile, and found that there was no provision in the law for house arrest. We could only keep them under watch. MGR said, do something.

The next morning MGR came back to Madras. The first thing he told me was, ‘I am going to Bangalore to attend the SAARC conference. If possible, I want to talk to Prabhakaran from Bangalore.’ I assured him that it could be arranged. It was easy to convince Prabhakaran because he used to tell me, ‘You are a professional. I am a professional. So, there is no problem.’

Was it true that Prabhakaran was MGR’s pet?

Of all the militant groups, the LTTE was the most dedicated. That was one reason why MGR liked him. Reason number two was, he was a very bold man. MGR appreciated dedication to the cause and liked bold men.

You were talking about MGR’s desire to talk to Prabhakaran.

Yes. A special IAF aircraft was arranged to take Prabhakaran and Anton Balasingham (the LTTE ideologue) to Bangalore. I had my sources in Bangalore. So, I tried to find out what was cooking there. They had a plan to offer the chief ministership of the north (Jaffna) to Prabhakaran. Remember, they offered only the north and not the north-east. Prabhakaran said, nothing doing. I don’t know whether he met Jayewardane or not. These people thought like Indian politicians, Prabhakaran also could be lured by the offer of a chief ministership!

The next day MGR came back and at the airport itself, he shouted, ‘What has this Prabhakaran done? I tried to help him by getting him something but he didn’t want that. Why is he behaving like this?’ He called me to his residence and said, ‘We must teach him a lesson. Seize all the wireless systems.’ I said, ‘Sir, it is a foolish thing to do. We are also able to get some information about their activities because of the wireless. The IB also gets some information.’ He shouted, ‘No, do it immediately’. We finished the operation in an hour.

The next day Prabhakaran went on a hunger strike. He was not bothered about arms because he knew he could always get arms. Communication was something very important to him.When I was out of station, the hunger strike went on and finally MGR said, ‘give back everything including the arms.’

When I came back, I was shocked to see what had happened. I got wild. At least we should also get wild once in a while! I asked him, ‘What have you done? Everybody has praised the operation and now you have given back everything.’ He couldn’t say anything then. Then I said, ‘I am resigning’. He was silent. But I did not resign because I was told I would lose some money if I resigned then. I did not tell him that. Even if I did, he would not have understood. I decided I would go on long leave. That was the end of my rendezvous with Prabhakaran and the Tamil militants.

You can see from what I have said that from 1982-83 the central intelligence agencies were actively building up and encouraging the Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups by training them in camps set up on Indian soil, funding them and also supplying them with large quantities of arms, ammunition and explosives apparently on instructions from the prime minister’s foreign policy advisors and intelligence chiefs.

In my professional judgement, the last chance that came for putting things right was on 8th November, 1986, when all the military groups were disarmed and Tamil Nadu was liberated from a grave menace. But the effects of the breakthrough were most unfortunately reversed within weeks. This sequence of events is, in my opinion, highly relevant to the circumstances that led to the tragic assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.

The Rediff Interview