(Recasts with India's demand to end hostilities) By S. Murari CHENNAI, India, April 23 (Reuters) - India asked Sri Lanka on Thursday to stop its military campaign against the Tamil Tigers, while the issue forced a regional party to shut down a key electoral swing state in the middle of India's election. India said it would send two special emissaries to Sri Lanka, to convey the government's concern about more trapped civilians in the war zone and demand an end to the war. "We are very unhappy at the continued killing in Sri Lanka. All killing must stop. There must be an immediate cessation of all hostilities," the foreign ministry said in a statement. Indian politicians face pressure to protect Sri Lankan Tamils, who are closely linked to about 60 million Tamils in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu across a narrow strait from Sri Lanka. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which rules Tamil Nadu state and is an ally of India's ruling coalition, called a 12-hour strike in the state, but experts said it was an attempt to garner votes with a show of sympathy for Sri Lankan Tamils. DMK has upped the rhetoric against the Sri Lankan military ahead of voting in Tamil Nadu next month. India is now voting to form a government in a staggered month-long general election. On Thursday, shops and business remained closed in Tamil Nadu and traffic stayed off the road, a shutdown experts said had more to do with the polls than concern for Tamil refugees. "The strike call is a feeble attempt by (DMK chief) Karunanidhi to show the people that he is concerned about the happenings in Sri Lanka," Cho S. Ramaswamy, a political commentator, said in Chennai. The Sri Lankan war has caught India's ruling Congress party in a bind. It needs to please ally DMK and win voters, without being seen as going soft on the Tamil Tigers who are blamed for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. With 39 parliamentary seats, Tamil Nadu is a big prize in the general election, and the DMK swept the state in 2004, a performance the Congress hopes Karunanidhi's party will repeat. Sri Lanka's military said troops now control all but 13 sq km (5 sq miles) of the island, where the LTTE and founder-leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran are fighting a last stand in their war to create a separate state for the Tamil minority. More than 100,000 refugees have emerged from the war zone this week, overloading the relief efforts. (Writing by Bappa Majumdar; Editing by Krittivas Mukherjee and Jeremy Laurence)
People stand near the destroyed Chianki railway station near Medininagar in Palamu district, in India's eastern Jharkhand state, April 23, 2009. Rebels blasted a railway station and chopped down trees to ...
