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We are not going to own up responsibility for a crime which we had not committed:

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi says the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam had maintained contacts with Sri Lankan militant groups including the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam at the instance of successive central governments. The DMK, he declared, would fight the political conspiracy to malign the party by taking the issue to the people.

Karunanidhi refuted the Congress charge that the DMK had provided sanctuary to the LTTE and collaborated with the Tigers which led to the Rajiv Gandhi assassination. He claimed it was Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi's governments which provided all the infrastructure, including arms training, to Sri Lankan militant groups.

As many as 30 training camps were set up in Tamil Nadu and Dehra Dun to train LTTE cadres, Karunanidhi told the media in Delhi today. All these activities, he quipped, could not be construed as initiatives to bring about peace in the war-torn island.

Describing the assassination as an inhuman act, Karunanidhi charged the Congress with trying to gain political mileage by putting the blame on the DMK. ''We are not going to own up responsiblity for a crime which we had not committed,'' he said when asked if the DMK would voluntarily opt out of the Gujral government.

Maintaining that the DMK has not been indicted directly for the assassination, Karunanidhi drew a parallel with the Thakkar Commission's report on Indira Gandhi's assassination which rebuked her then special assistant R K Dhawan, now a Congress MP. Quoting from the Thakkar Commission report, Karunanidhi said, '' 'Mr Dhawan had played a role in facilitating the crime committed by Beant Singh and Satwant Singh','' Indira Gandhi's assassins.

The Congress, Karunanidhi said, had no problems in retaining Dhawan in the party as general secretary and working committee member.

Recalling his meetings with Rajiv Gandhi after he became chief minister, Karunanidhi said the then prime minister had asked him to conduct talks with the LTTE even when it was fighting the Indian Peace Keeping Force and bring about a truce. A DMK team was offered transport facilities to reach the island, he said.

The Tamil Nadu chief minister said the V P Singh government formally authorised him to hold talks with all the Sri Lankan militant groups including the LTTE in an attempt to end the ethnic problem in the island nation.

He said the Sri Lankan problem has been raging since 1980. Since then the Congress and AIADMK had ruled the central and state governments for over 15 years. The DMK and V P Singh governments had ruled the state and Centre hardly for two years, the CM added.

The Jain Commission itself, he said, had stated that Rajiv Gandhi had a secret meeting with a top LTTE official three months before his assassination. The meeting, he said, was arranged by a top journalist from Madras.

The assassination took place during President's rule and on that very day the then governor Bhisham Narain Singh, after interacting with state police officials, had made a statement that militant activities had been contained in the state.

UNI

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