MPs walk out of Lok Sabha on Sri Lankan Tamils issue

India today continued to be evasive on its stand to be adopted on the resolution against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Commission, triggering an angry walk out in Lok Sabha by UPA constituent DMK and AIADMK which was joined by BJP and JD(U).

Amidst demands that the country take a strong stand on the resolution in UNHRC, Geneva, against the human rights violations in the island, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said India would take the "best possible" decision.

India wants an "independent and acceptable" inquiry into the issue, he added while winding up a short-duration discussion on the issue.

But Khurshid parried questions when members, cutting across party lines, wanted to know the government's "clear cut" stand on why India should not not move a resolution on its own or how it would vote on the proposed US-sponsored motion at the UNHRC in Geneva soon.

Ruling out any direct intervention in Sri Lanka, he said the government needed to be careful as whatever it would do "should not be thrown back at us in the future as everybody is not our friend".

"We don't play the policeman of the world or the big brother in any country," Khurshid said when members, especially those from Tamil Nadu were agitated that the Centre was "ignoring" the plight of Tamils and the "genocide" by the Sri Lankan army.

Noting the anger, particularly among members from Tamil Nadu, he held out an assurance that sentiments and concerns expressed by them during a debate on plight of ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka, would be factored in the government's stand at the UN.

Dissatisfied with Khurshid's reply, members of the DMK, AIADMK and  BJP and JD(U)reply staged a protest walkout.