Chennai, Nov. 4 (The Telegraph): Former Bengal governor and national security adviser M.K. Narayanan was attacked with chappals as he was being escorted out of a meeting on Sri Lankan Tamil refugees this evening.

The chappals, thrown by a slogan-shouting protester, hit Narayanan on his shoulder and the back of his head before his police guards whisked him away from the meeting hall.

The attacker, who blamed Narayanan for the "plight of Lankan Tamils", was identified as Prabhakaran but told police he was not linked to any outfit - unlike his more famous namesake who founded the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the now-decimated militant organisation.

Narayanan was Intelligence Bureau director when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in May 1991 by some LTTE activists and, later, national security adviser between 2005 and 2010, when India had backed the Lankan army's final assault against the group, leading to its defeat in May 2009.

Pro-Tamil groups had viewed him as the main strategist who backed the then Mahinda Rajapaksa government's campaign against the LTTE, which resulted in the death of the group's top leadership and more than 10,000 Tamils in the final stages of the war.

In Chennai today, some pro-Lankan Tamil groups protested against Narayanan's presence and pasted posters that called him an "enemy of the Tamil race".

The assailant identified as Prabhakaran

Prabhakaran attacked Narayanan as he was being escorted out by N. Ram, chairman of The Hindu group, whose policy centre had organised the discussion on the status of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India. Ram condemned the incident as senseless.

During the discussions that lasted over two hours, Narayanan had said Lankan Tamil refugees, numbering nearly a lakh, would not face any problems in getting Indian citizenship if they chose to, especially when Hindu refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh had been promised citizenship.

"In these days of PIOs (Persons of Indian Origin) and OCIs (Overseas Citizenship of India), there is a more liberalised view on granting citizenships and this will play out in the coming years," he said.

He agreed with another speaker, S.C. Chandrahasan, that no Tamil refugee could be forced to return. Chandrahasan, a Sri Lankan Tamil who runs an organisation to resettle Tamil refugees, said: "We only seek greater financial and organisational support from the Indian government to speed up their resettlement in Sri Lanka."

In his concluding remarks, Ram expressed appreciation that such a sensitive issue could be discussed dispassionately and thanked the audience. One man, however, disagreed.

Photo credit: The Telegraph)