The memorial for the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Jaffna has got a second facelift in two years in keeping with the increasing awareness of the sacrifices made by the Indian armed forces in maintaining the unity and integrity of Sri Lanka in the face of militant separatism between July 1987 and March 1990.

At a solemn ceremony held at the site just outside Jaffna’s Palaly airport, the Consul General for India in Jaffna, A Natarajan, the Defence Advisor to the Indian High Commission in Cololmbo, Capt Prakash Gopalan, and Brig S K Thirunavukkarasu, Commander of  51 Division of the Sri Lankan Army based in Jaffna, formally opened the impressive memorial built in blue-black granite.

The names of all the 33 officers and men of the 10th Para Regiment, including Lt Col Arun Kumar Chhabra, who had perished in the battle for Jaffna against the LTTE on Oct 12, 1987, are inscribed on a column mounted on a granite platform with pillars at the four corners bearing the majestic Lion Capital of Emperor Ashoka.

The memorial was originally a set of stones bearing the names of the men who had laid down their lives. In a country where the dead are revered, the  Sri Lankan army and air force had kept the place clean. Even the LTTE had not desecrated the tomb stones, though it had fought the men commemorated there.

When Ashok Kantha was High Commissioner for India in Sri Lanka, he decided to build a proper memorial with a fence around it. On February 23, 2013, a modest white washed brick and mortar memorial was inaugurated by him in the presence of the Sri Lankan Army’s Jaffna Commander, Maj Gen Mahinda Hathurusinghe. This is the third IPKF memorial in Lanka. The most imposing one is in Colombo located near Parliament house. The black granite structure placed on a raised platform, has the names of the 1500- odd dead Indian soldiers.
(The New Indian Express)