A former officer of the Indian army, who had headed the peacekeeping force in Sri Lanka [Images], has claimed that the then Indian High Commissioner to Colombo J N Dixit had asked him in 1987 to eliminate LTTE chief V Prabhakaran when he comes for a flag meeting with the force.

Major General (Retd) Harkirat Singh claimed he, however, refused to carry out the order of Dixit on the ground that he cannot do such an act during such flag meetings.

He said Dixit had called him over phone on September 15, 1987, and asked him to kill the Prabhakaran during the meeting Army and the rebels was having.

"I received a call from the High Commissioner that tomorrow you are meeting Prabhakaran and we would like you to eliminate him," Singh told PTI.

"We are an orthodox army and we do not indulge in shooting at the back," Singh said when asked why he refused to carry put the orders of the government.

He said he had informed Overall Forces Commander Lt General Deepinder Singh about the call he received from Dixit and he claimed that his senior stood by his reasoning to not to carry out the killing.

Singh then returned the call to Dixit to inform him that the Army will not carry out his orders to kill the leader of the Tamil Tigers.

Asked whether Prabhakaran knew about the plot, the veteran soldier said the LTTE supremo might have come to know about it later.

"I do not know whether he knew it. He may have got to know about it later," Singh, who recounted this incident in his book Intervention in Sri Lanka, said.

Singh said he could not say whether Prabhakaran took revenge for taking such a decision by killing Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.