Indira Gandhi had asked Thatcher to stop helping Sri Lanka military, documents reveal

The new documents show that in September 1984 foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe's private secretary, Peter Ricketts, wrote to David Barclay, private secretary to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher about a request to allow a British company with SAS connections to work in Sri Lanka.

The Sri Lankan government under President J R Jayewardene was then tackling the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) forces and other groups in the north and east of the island nation.

Ricketts wrote: "The Sri Lankan government have engaged another British company (name removed) to provide training in counter-terrorist techniques … The presence of (the company's) employees, including some ex-SAS personnel, in Sri Lanka, has aroused controversy and the Indian government have expressed concern to us about the firm's involvement.

“We have made it clear that this is a purely commercial matter and that HMG (Her Majesty's Government) are not involved.”

The firm was allowed to continue working in Sri Lanka.