There is no direct support,"

"There is no direct support,"

Indian Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta
Reported by- The Time of India

NEW DELHI: A day after Colombo praised the Indian Navy for its help in countering LTTE, India on Wednesday said it was just conducting "coordinated patrolling" with the Sri Lankan Navy along the IMBL (international maritime boundary line) as part of the move to bolster its own coastal security.

"There is no direct support," said Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta. The Indian Navy patrols and guards its own waters in the wake of the ever-increasing threat terrorism from the sea. If this helps Sri Lanka, so be it, he added.

India, of course, is already supplying Sri Lanka with a wide array of military equipment, which also includes new low-flying detection radars in addition to the ones given earlier. The process actually began with the transfer of a Sukanya-class offshore patrol vessel in 2002, with the primary aim of countering Pakistan and China's inroads into the island nation.

Sri Lanka, in fact, recently provided a long list of "urgent military requirements" to India, which ranges from air defence weapons, artillery guns, Nishant UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) to more radars and even laser designators for PGMs (precision-guided munitions).

But the UPA government has to keep in mind domestic political compulsions, with heightened political sensitivities in Tamil Nadu, before drastically stepping up the transfer of "offensive military capabilities" to Sri Lanka.

India obviously does not want to be directly sucked into Sri Lanka's never-ending ethnic strife after the IPKF fiasco of the late-1980s. But since last year after the interception of an LTTE explosive-laden boat near the Tamil Nadu coast, India has stepped up naval patrolling in Palk Strait and Gulf of Mannar by deploying more warships under 'Operation Tasha'.

The audacious LTTE air strikes against Sri Lankan bases in March-April last year also led the Indian security forces to quickly put in place a "multi-layered surveillance and radar network" along the coast, with the Navy even deploying its Israeli UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) for reconnaissance missions.