India’s Congress protests in Chennai against release of Rajiv Gandhi’s killers

Saturday, 22 February 2014 10:13 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Chennai: Reuters Members of India’s ruling Congress party sat on hunger strike on Friday (February 21) in southern city Chennai in state of Tamil Nadu as they protested against provincial government’s decision to release the assassins of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Chief Minister of southern Tamil Nadu, J. Jayalalithaa had announced the release of all the seven convicts - Santhan, Murugan, Perarivalan, Nalini, Robert Pious, Jayakumar and Ravichandran - in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case on Wednesday (February 19). However, her decision was excoriated by Congress and others, which pressed the imposition of continued punitive actions to the convicts. Hundreds of cadres were present at the hunger strike on Friday and it was headed by B.S. Gnanadesigan, President of Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC). Senior leaders like EVKS Elangovan and Peter Alphonse were also present at the demonstration. “This is not an ordinary assassination by somebody. It is an assasination plotted by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from

the Sri Lankan soil. Therefore, this case has to be looked into from a different angle. Therefore, whether death or life it is for the apex court to say. But this argument was put forth or not I do not know. In review petition I will ask the central (federal) government has to put forth this argument,” said Gnanadesigan. Legal experts opined that since the case had been abdicated by Tamil Nadu government during the investigation of the case, it has no right to declare the release of the convicts who are serving jail sentence. Jayalalithaa further drew flak from Chief of India’s regional political party, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Muthuvel Karunanidhi, when he pointed out that Tamil Nadu government had rejected convict Nalini’s parole plea in the second week of February. At present all convicts are serving time in a prison in Tamil Nadu. However, people in various parts of Tamil Nadu have welcomed the decision. India’s former PM Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a suicide bomber at an election rally in Sriperumbedur on May 21, 1991. The three Indian men - tried as Santhan, Murugan, Perarivalan - were members of a Sri Lankan ethnic Tamil separatist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and Gandhi’s killing was seen as an act of retaliation after he sent Indian peacekeepers to Sri Lanka in 1987. The three were convicted of involvement in 1998 and sentenced to death by hanging. A fourth person, a woman, was also given the death sentence but it was later commuted to a life term. In 2000, their mercy petition was sent to the President of India, the last stage in the process of appeals, and was rejected 11 years later. The abolition of death penalty is being seriously advocated by human rights activists the world over, arguing that it is too barbaric a custom for modern civilised societies.