NEW DELHI, May 14 (Xinhua) -- India on Tuesday extended the ban on Sri Lanka-based separatist organization "Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE)" for five more years, saying it "threatened the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country."
In a government notification issued on Tuesday morning, the country's Home Ministry (Internal Security) stated that the LTTE had been "clandestinely" working towards attaining a separate homeland Ealam for the Tamil community.
It said that the LTTE's activities continued to foster a separatist tendency among the masses and enhanced the LTTE support base in India, particularly in southern state Tamil Nadu, which shares coastal border with Sri Lanka, hence there was a strong need to "control" all such separatist activities by all possible lawful means.
After a decade-long armed conflict, the LTTE was defeated by the Sri Lankan military in 2009.
The Indian government had issued a similar notification banning the LTTE for five years starting May 2014.
