Cite
MLA
“IPKF in Sri Lanka.” Hindu History, 2026, https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/ipkf-sri-lanka-1987/. Accessed .
APA
Hindu History. (2026). IPKF in Sri Lanka. Retrieved , from https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/ipkf-sri-lanka-1987/
The IPKF took Jaffna and held the north-east, but could not destroy the LTTE; it withdrew at Colombo’s request, the last troops leaving on 24 March 1990.
01From peacekeeping to war
Rajiv Gandhi and President J. R. Jayewardene signed the Accord in Colombo on 29 July 1987. It promised devolution to a merged north-eastern province, and Indian troops were to see the Tamil groups disarm. The LTTE handed in only part of its weapons. In early October, after seventeen of its captured cadres took cyanide in Sri Lankan custody, it turned on the IPKF. On 10 October India launched Operation Pawan to take Jaffna town. The fighting in the streets and palmyra groves lasted about three weeks and was costly; a heliborne landing at Jaffna University on the first night was cut to pieces.
02A war without an end
With Jaffna taken, the LTTE went into the Vanni jungles and fought on as guerrillas. The IPKF grew to several divisions and held elections for the new provincial council in 1988, but could not finish the Tigers. In 1989 President Premadasa, facing the JVP rising in the south, asked India to leave and even armed the LTTE against it. The last Indian troops sailed from Trincomalee on 24 March 1990. India’s official figure for its dead is about 1,200. In May 1991 an LTTE suicide bomber killed Rajiv Gandhi at Sriperumbudur.
The IPKF was independent India’s longest and costliest operation abroad; its lessons shaped the army’s counter-insurgency doctrine and made Delhi wary of sending troops into a neighbour’s civil war again.
