SRI LANKAN PILGRIMS ATTACKED IN TAMIL NADU

The buses in which the Sri Lankan pilgrims travelled attacked and damaged:

After the Sri Lankan catholic pilgrims were attacked and harassed at Tamil Nadu, they were requested to return to Sri Lanka by the Foreign Ministry. The pilgrims had travelled in seven buses to the airport of which all were attacked causing damages to the buses by the LTTE supporters in Tamil Nadu. They had been waving black flags while attacking the buses in the Kattur area in Tamil Nadu.
There had been 178 Sri Lankans who had travelled in these buses. Amongst them there had been 76 women pilgrims while 36 of them had been children. These Sri Lankans had been catholic pilgrims who had gone to worship the Walakkaram Church.
In the first instance when the pilgrims were harassed and attacked by the LTTE supporters, the foreign ministry officials had requested them to return. However the day before yesterday when they went to worship the Tanjmar Catholic Church they had been given sufficient protection.
The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalitha Jayram, earlier a few days ago had ordered a Sri Lankan school football team to return to Sri Lanka when they had been there to participate in a football match at the Nehru Stadium in Chennai. This protest had begun after this incident.
However no Sri Lankan had been affected by the attacks and threats. All had been brought back to Sri Lanka safely in a special plane that was sent from here.