An Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, under suspension from the Customs Department, Mumbai, B. Balamurugan (50), is on a walk from Chennai to Kanyakumari pressing India to move a resolution seeking a war crime probe against Sri Lanka in the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The 2003-batch officer, in the cadre of Assistant Commissioner, began his ‘padayatra’ from St. Fort George in Chennai on April 18. He crossed Sattur and entered Tuticorin district on Thursday.

Father of three children, Mr. Balamurugan said that he had been placed under suspension after he took up a fast at Salem, between February 3 and 9, 2009, seeking to put an end to the war in Sri Lanka. He had shot off a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi on the issue.

“I submitted my resignation in November 2009, on which no action has been taken so far. Subsequently, a departmental enquiry was conducted on my fast but the final decision was yet to be taken,” he told The Hindu over phone.

Stating that being under suspension he did not have to take permission from his office for his ‘padayatra’, Mr. Balamurugan said he was not violating any service rules.

“In fact, as a government servant, it is my duty to advise the State,” he said.”I have not taken up this walk as a Tamilian or for the cause of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. It is beyond any individual or society, but it is for justice for the people who were massacred during the war. I believe that a UN probe will be good for Sri Lanka as a nation and not for Tamils alone,” he said. – The Hindu