Terming a Sri Lankan minister’s accusations against the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) of raping Tamil women as “voices from the wilderness,” the Indian government says it will only respond to the allegations if they are raised by the Sri Lankan government.

“The Sri Lankan Government has not raised these issues with us. We deal with the Sri Lankan Government. As a government, we deal with the Sri Lankan Government,” the Official Spokesperson of the Indian External Affairs Ministry, Syed Akbaruddin, said in response to a question at a media briefing on Thursday.

He stated that the Indian High Commissioner in Colombo is in touch “virtually on a day-to-day basis” or more than once a day with the Sri Lankan Government.

“If they have not raised this issue with us, we will not respond to issues from voices in the wilderness,” he said.

Deputy Resettlement Minister Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna Amman, who was a former LTTE leader, recently accused the IPKF of raping Tamil women during the Sri Lankan war.

He told Parliament that the IPKF who conducted peacekeeping operations in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1990, had raped several Tamil women while also killing Tamils. “There is evidence for that,” Karuna, who was then the LTTE’s feared eastern leader, said.

The IPKF was invited into north and eastern Sri Lanka in terms of the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987.

Karuna broke away from the LTTE in 2004 to form his own movement and later his own political party. He was later allied with the ruling coalition UPFA to become a deputy minister and was also appointed a Vice President of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP).

However, Akbaruddin refused to respond to such “voices from the wilderness,” saying the Indian government would only respond “clearly and lucidly” to other governments

“I have said this before in other instances, let me repeat it in this instance that voices from the wilderness will try and occupy your mind space and your space. As far as us, we are government, we will respond and respond clearly and lucidly to governments.”

“The moment the Sri Lankan Government raises issues, we will respond to them and we will make it clear to you,” he said.