India ready to help evacuate civilians

Having burnt its fingers by sending the army into Sri Lanka, India has since made it a point to stay out of the ethnic conflict in the island.

But with national elections round the corner, foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee said in Parliament on Wednesday that New Delhi was ready to help evacuate Tamil civilians caught in the war zone in Jaffna.

“The government of India is ready to facilitate the evacuation of civilians trapped in the area of conflict, (and is) working with the government of Sri Lanka... for the security, screening and rehabilitation of these internally displaced persons,” Mukherjee said.

Helping in evacuation naturally means sending Indian planes or navy boats to the island state as the armed forces are the nodal agency to take on such a task.