Madurai, Oct 28: India should provide help to maintain peace in Sri Lanka if the island nation asked for it, but only under a defence pact, Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy said today. Under the pact, the Lankan government should allow India to station two divisions of army and set up a cantonment in Colombo. They should also station one Indian Air Force squadron and Indian Army should train Sri Lankan Army personnel, Swamy told reporters here. He said that Indian peace keeping force, which was sent earlier, had failed because the Lankan government had allegedly "betrayed" India, though IPKF had helped them hold elections in northern Peninsula. He alleged that liberation tigers of Tamil Eelam was armed subsequently to fight the Indian Army. There was a "flaw" in Indian policy which did not want to arrest LTTE Supremo V Prabhakaran, Swamy said.

Referring to the 12-point peace proposals to Pakistan, he alleged that the union government was "confused" on Kashmir issue and was talking to the groups which were not accepting the finality of merger of Kashmir with India.

Swamy said his party was also planning to hold "party lawyers conference" here on October 31. The conference would be on the themes "PIL and public rights", "how to get amenities" and "how to fight police harassment". Lawyers from 15 districts would attend the conference, he said. Bureau Report