Karunanidhi offers help to Prabhakaran’s mother

CHENNAI - The Tamil Nadu government is ready to help the mother of slain Tamil Tigers leader Velupillai Prabhakaran to get medical treatment in the state, Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi said Monday.

Karunanidhi told the assembly that he knew from news reports that the ailing Parvathi Ammal was presently getting medical treatment in Kuala Lumpur.

“If she declares that she would like to get medical attention in Tamil Nadu, then the state government would consider the request and accordingly write to the centre,” he said.

Parvathi, 79, suffering from paralysis, arrived here with an aide from the Malaysian capital Saturday night to secure medical attention in a city hospital.

Indian immigration officials refused her permission to alight from the aircraft and sent her back to Malaysia on the same plane because she was considered a law and order problem.

Prabhakaran’s parents lived in Tamil Nadu’s Trichy town for many years. They moved back to Sri Lanka in 2003 when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) led by Prabhakaran controlled large areas in Sri Lanka’s northeast.

After Prabhakaran was killed by the Sri Lankan military in May 2009, his parents were taken into custody. Subsequently, Prabhakaran’s father died and his wife moved to Malaysia.

According to Karunanidhi, the central government had imposed a ban on the entry of Parvathi, based on the letter written by the AIADMK government in 2003.

Karunanidhi said the state government was not informed about the Saturday visit of Parvathi, who was to have been received at the airport by Tamil Nadu politicians sympathetic to the LTTE.