By Express News Service - TIRUCHY
05th September 2012 08:06 AM
A group of 184 Sri Lankan Christians, who faced the wrath of Tamil
activists at the Poondi Basilica on Monday, cut short their pilgrimage to Our
Lady of Health Basilica in Vailankanni on Tuesday as protestors followed them
there and even hurled stones and footwear at their buses.
The Sinhalese people from Puttalam in Lanka — 83 of them women and 36
children — landed in Tiruchy on September 2 to attend the annual car festival
that is underway in Vailankanni with plans of a prolonged stay.
But the series of protests by activists of MDMK and Naam Tamizhar
Iyakkam made them board the special flight to Colombo on Tuesday evening with
the women in tears and children screaming in fear. Though some of them have
been making the pilgrimage for years — one of them for 34 years — panic was
writ large on their faces when they entered the airport after 3 pm.
After the incident at Poondi, where they were besieged, the group went
to Vailankanni only to face protestors trying to surround the seven buses they
were travelling in. So, the group was advised to leave the country immediately.
As they headed to Tiruchy to board the flight, stones and chappals were hurled
at the buses at the Tiruvarur-Nagapattinam road junction. Though the protestors
neither carried weapons nor tried to do any physical harm, their angry
expression and fierce shouting made the pilgrims shudder.
