Lankan monk attacked by Tamil groups

Sri Lankan Buddhist monk Pathberiye Gnanaloka Thera was assaulted by members of a Tamil outfit at a temple in Thanjavur in India on Saturday.

The ‘Divaina’ newspaper reported that he was a part of a team of students from the Institute of Archaeology of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), New Delhi, on a study tour of the temple.

Later in the day, vans transporting the students from Thanjavur to Tiruchi airport were pelted with stones by the group. The students escaped unhurt.

According to a report in ‘The Hindu’ newspaper, “In Thanjavur, the students and staff, 19 in total, were going around the Brihadeeswarar temple when a group owing allegiance to the Naam Tamizhar Katchi and the Thamizh Desiya Podhuvudamai Katchi attacked Ven. Gnanaloka Thera, who stood out in the group in his saffron robe.”

The assailants had surrounded the ASI office near the temple when the students were taken there and demanded that the monk be sent out.

Police escorted the vans to Tiruchi with the students including the monk who was asked to change his clothes. Members of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Naam Tamizhar Katchi had attacked the two vans transporting the students with sticks and stones, police said.

City Commissioner of Police Shailesh Kumar Yadav, who met the students at the airport, had put the monk on a Chennai-bound flight later in the evening.

The students are studying for their post-graduate diploma in archaeology in Delhi and hailed from different countries, including China, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Following this incident, their proposed visit to Darasuram and Gangaikondacholapuram temples were cancelled.

Gnanaloka Thera, who has been staying in New Delhi for the last one-and-a-half years pursuing the post-graduate diploma course, told ‘The Hindu’ over phone from Tiruchi airport that he visited India in 2011 and enrolled himself for the ASI course.

Eleven persons, including  the state co-ordinator of the Naam Tamizhar Katchi and Pazha Rajendran of the Thamizh Desiya Podhuvudamai Katchi, were arrested in Thanjavur while 10 people, including MDMK rural district secretary, Tiruchi, were held  in connection with the stone throwing incident.

Foreign Ministry Secretary Karunathilaka Amunugama said, “We have already instructed the high commissioner in New Delhi to take up the matter with the Indian External Affairs Ministry and lodge a protest against the incident.”



 

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