July 4, 2002	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 22,1423

CHENNAI, July 3: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha Jayaram threatened on Wednesday to arrest a member of the national coalition under an anti-terror law for his support of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels, officials said.

Chief Minister Jayalalitha Jayaram sent a letter to India’s Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani with a videotape of a speech made by M.K. Vaiko reiterating his support for the Tiger separatists, a spokesman for her government said.

She said she hoped to have the government ally arrested under the tough Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), which Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Hindu nationalist government pushed through parliament in March.

Vaiko heads the regional MDMK party in Tamil Nadu, which backs Vajpayee’s government. Jayalalitha’s AIADMK party is in the opposition in New Delhi.

Vaiko has been a staunch supporter of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which has been fighting the Colombo government for three decades.

In her letter, Jayalalitha said Vaiko’s “audacious and outrageous statements” left her government with “no other option but to proceed against the individual” under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

The letter quoted Vaiko telling a June 29 rally: “‘Yesterday I supported the LTTE. Even today I am supporting the LTTE. Even tomorrow I will continue to support the LTTE. I am not afraid of POTA.”—AFP