‘Operation Tiger’ of November 1986 caused ‘much confusion’ in T.N. police dept., recalls former DGP

Former DGP recounts Operation Tiger in Tamil Nadu, disarming Sri Lankan militants causing confusion in police department.

The simultaneous “disarming” of all the Sri Lankan militants in Tamil Nadu during November 1986 - also called Operation Tiger -  caused “much confusion” in the police department, according to W.I. Davaram, former Director General of Police.

In his recently-launched memoir ‘Munnar to Marina: The Journey,’ the former DGP, who held the post between September 1995 and May 1996, referred to an exercise carried out in the early hours of November  8, 1986 to “disarm” the militants all over the State. The police recovered weapons such as  AK-47 rifles, SAM missiles, rocket launchers, two-inch mortars, hand grenades, rifles and pistols, said a news item of The Hindu on November 9, 1986. 

“Apart from Madras, there were raids in Chingleput [now covers Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts in addition to Chengalpattu], Tiruchi, Pudukkottai, South Arcot [Cuddalore, Villupuram and Kallakurichi], Salem, Thanjavur, Ramanathapuram, Madurai and Anna [now called Dindigul] districts,” the report added. 

In his work, Mr Davaram, who was the then Police Commissioner of Chennai, said: “The disarming itself had no parallel in history. Even an accidental firing by one of the militants in any of the [militants’] camps would have developed into a major conflagration. I shudder to think of a battle between militants armed with the most modern weapons and the Tamil Nadu police armed with pre-historic firearms fit only to control unlawful and unarmed assemblies.”

Exactly a week earlier, a 24-year-old youth, belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SC), was killed and two others sustained bullet injuries in the city when the militants belonging to the Sri Lankan Tamil group, the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) opened fire “indiscriminately” at a crowd following an altercation, The Hindu reported on November 3, 1986.

Mr. Davaram recorded that it was he who, “with a small team” of police personnel, “surrounded” the residence of  LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] chief V. Prabhakaran in Indira Nagar, “disarmed him and his followers, numbering over 30, and took them to the office of the DIG, CID.”  Prabhakaran, “who was kept waiting”  on the corridor of the CID office, “maintained total silence.” Only his associate, Anton Balasingham, had protested the arrest. 

The author went on to say that the arrested militants were released but without their weapons. The exception was made in the case of Tamil Tigers, to whom the weapons were given back.  “This process benefitted none but the LTTE,” he mentioned.