Sri Lankan Tamil pilgrims stranded at Chennai airport

Chennai: About 95 Sri Lankan Tamils were stranded at the Chennai airport when they missed the return flight to their homeland on Monday. Several of them were held up enroute to the airport in buses for fear of violence in connection with the fasting of VCK leader Thirumavalavan.
This group of 95 Tamilians had come from Sri Lanka last week on a pilgrimage to Sabarimala and were supposed return home on Monday by a Sri Lankan airlines flight in the morning. However, several of them were coming back by road and their buses were stopped because of Thirumavalavan’s fasting for the cause of their larger community back home.
The Sri Lankan airlines flight on Monday morning reportedly waited for them for about an hour and then took off without these passengers. While seven of these people came to Chennai by train and boarded their scheduled flight on Monday, the rest of them reached the airport only in the evening.
The representatives of Sri Lankan airlines then assured them that they would be sent home depending on the seat availability. While some members of the group were sent on Tuesday, a majority of them still sat waiting at the airport to be put on the next flight.
21/01/09 ExpressBuzz

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Categories: Airports Jan 2009, Foreign Jan 2009