Operation Pawan Begins

Date: October 11, 1987 • Location: Jaffna, Sri Lanka

This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 1987–1990.

Sri Lankan Civil War: The Indian Peace Keeping Force began Operation Pawan to take control of Jaffna from the Tamil Tigers and enforce their disarmament as a part of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord.

The Sri Lankan civil war was an armed conflict fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, it was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam led by Velupillai Prabhakaran. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island in response to continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the predominantly Sinhalese government of Sri Lanka.