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NEW DELHI: Buckling under pressure from political parties in Tamil Nadu, the Union government on Friday "shifted’’ the 27 Sri Lankan military personnel being trained at the Tambaram airbase near Chennai to neighbouring Karnataka.

"All Sri Lankan trainees are being sent off today from this station (Tambaram) as per instructions of the defence ministry,’’ said a terse statement issued by military authorities in Chennai. A red-faced MoD in New Delhi, in turn, ducked for cover and refused to say anything on the matter.?

Sources said the decision to "abruptly shift’’ the 27 Sri Lankan technical stream airmen to Bangalore’s Yelahanka airbase was taken "at the highest level" in the Centre following mounting protests from political parties in Tamil Nadu.

The decision came after TN chief minister J Jayalalithaa on Thursday held the training of Sri Lankan military personnel in the state was "an insult to Tamil people’’ and others like her bitter rival DMK, a part of the UPA government at the Centre, too joined in the anti-Sri Lanka chorus.

Later in the day, government sources were at pains to suggest the 27 Sri Lankan personnel had ``completed’’ their ``training phase’’ at Tambaram and would further continue their nine-month course on ground handling of transport aircraft at Yelahanka.

With the discrimination against Sri Lankan Tamils by the majority Sinhalese in the island nation being a hugely emotive issue in Tamil Nadu, the Centre has always had to strike a fine balance between domestic political sensitivities and larger strategic considerations.

Even when the Sri Lankan forces were earlier battling the LTTE, India’s strategy to provide non-lethal arms and military training to Colombo, coupled with intelligence sharing and `coordinated’ naval patrolling, was primarily aimed to counter ever-growing strategic inroads into the island nation by both China and Pakistan.

Though India trains soldiers from several countries — ranging from the Maldives, Mauritius and Mongolia to Botswana, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan — the facilities extended to Sri Lanka are much more. The premier Indian Military Academy at Dehradun, for instance, has even run ’special courses’ to train hundreds of "gentlemen cadets’’ from Sri Lanka.

Over the last several years, India has also trained thousands of Sri Lankan personnel at its military institutions ranging from Counter-Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School at Vairengte in Mizoram to School of Artillery at Devlali in Maharashtra, apart from providing specialised naval courses in gunnery, navigation, communication and anti-submarine warfare.

Continuing with this diplomatic and military engagement, India and Sri Lanka last September-November had also held their first major naval combat exercise "SLINEX-11’’ in six years, with a total of 16 warships off Trincomalee. The Indian Navy, in recent times, has also done hydro-graphic surveys and salvage operations for Sri Lanka.