India strongly denies LTTE camps

Strongly reacting to Sri Lanka's allegations of presence of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) camps in the country, India on Thursday 'categorically' denied existence of such camps and asked Colombo to 'desist from reacting to speculative and uncorroborated reports.' "We have seen reports from Sri Lanka referring to the Sri Lankan prime minister's statement in their Parliament alluding to the presence of LTTE training camps in Tamil Nadu. We categorically deny the existence of any such camps," official spokesperson in the ministry of external affairs said in New Delhi. He said the government of Sri Lanka has also not taken up this issue with India. "Such a reference is indeed unfortunate and we urge Sri Lanka to desist from reacting to speculative and uncorroborated reports," the spokesperson added. Sri Lanka's Prime Minister DM Jayaratne yesterday told his country's Parliament that LTTE was still operating training centres in India. Jayaratne said a former Lanka rebel named Vinayagam heads the operations in India with the assistance of Nediyavan who is Oslo-based and added that there was a chance that India trained LTTE cadres may carry out attacks in Sri Lanka.