Wednesday, 10 December 2014 00:31
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Reuters: President Mahinda Rajapaksa arrived in southern India on Tuesday (9) to visit the revered Hindu temple town of Tirupati amid tight security.
During his private visit, Rajapaksa will offer prayers at Tirumala Venkateswara Temple with his family.
Police have made elaborate security arrangements to prevent any untoward incident, as some of the political parties in neighbouring Tamil Nadu state are hostile to Rajapaksa due to ethnic Tamil issues in the island nation.
India is also concerned about Sri Lanka’s treatment of minority Tamils, whose separatist insurgency was crushed in 2009 amid allegations of widespread atrocities against civilians by Colombo’s armed forces.
Tamils share India’s main Hindu faith. Sri Lankan-Indian ties have been strained by what New Delhi deems to be a heightened Chinese presence in Sri Lanka, citing a recent visit of a Chinese warship and submarine to Colombo port.
For its part, Sri Lanka has long fumed over poaching and illegal fishing by Indian fishermen that it says deplete the catches of its own fishermen.
