Following Rajiv Gandhi’s defeat in the December 1989 Indian elections, new Prime Minister V.P. Singh ordered the withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force from Sri Lanka. The last IPKF ship left Sri Lanka on March 24, 1990, ending a controversial intervention that cost over 1,165 Indian soldiers’ lives and failed to disarm the LTTE. The following year, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by an LTTE suicide bomber during an election rally in India in revenge for the IPKF deployment.
1990 AD
IPKF Withdrawal from Sri Lanka
Following Rajiv Gandhi's defeat in the December 1989 Indian elections, new Prime Minister V.P. Singh ordered the withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force from Sri Lanka. The last IPKF ship left Sri Lanka on March 24, 1990, ending a controversial intervention that cost over 1,165 Indian soldiers' lives and failed to disarm the LTTE. The following year, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by an LTTE suicide bomber during an election rally in India in revenge for the IPKF deployment.