Under-15 cricket team from Sri Lanka asked to leave Chennai

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa

An under-15 cricket team from Sri Lanka has been asked to leave Chennai as a disparaging article on the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J Jayalalithaa, on a Sri Lankan website came to light.

The under-15 team from the island nation was in Chennai for the JM Haroon cricket tournament, which is due to take place from August 4-7. The Chennai police, however, asked the team to leave the city in the wake of the severe backlash against the inflammatory remarks made on the chief minister. The team boarded the flight back to Colombo on Monday morning.

The article in question had appeared on Sri Lanka’s defence ministry website and also had a graphic image of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It caused public outcry in the state and resulted in the Sri Lankan government having to remove the article and issue an unconditional apology to the two leaders.

This is not an isolated incident as, a couple of years back, a Sri Lankan football team, which had arrived in Chennai to play a friendly match, was ordered to be sent back home by Jayalalithaa, who was echoing the sentiments of Indian Tamils at large, and were upset at the war crimes being committed against Tamils in the island nation. Subsequently, she also suspended an official of the state government at the Nehru stadium for having given oral approval to the match.