International Desk: Five accused including Nalini Sriharan, who was sentenced to life in the former Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, have been released. On Friday (November 11), the country’s Supreme Court ordered the release of the accused. This information was given in a report of NDTV.
In the order, the Supreme Court of India said the Tamil Nadu government had earlier recommended their release to the governor, reports said. Last May, the country’s Supreme Court acquitted another accused in the murder case, AG Perarivalan.
The accused involved in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination are Nalini Sriharan, Santhan, Murugan, Robert Payas and Ravichandran. A bench of Justices BR Gavai and BV Nagarathnar of the Supreme Court of India said that the judgment of the apex court also applies to other accused like AG Perarivalan, one of the accused in the case.
On May 18 this year, the Supreme Court of India exercised special powers under Article 142 of the Constitution and ordered Perarivalan’s release. He was in prison for more than 30 years.
The six acquitted convicts Nalini Sriharan, Ravichandran, Santhan, Murugan, AG Perarivalan and Robert Payas were sentenced to life imprisonment. They spent more than 23 years in jail.
Sriharan and Ravichandran applied for parole to the Tamil Nadu state government in 2021. They have been free on parole since December 27 last year with the approval of the state government under the ‘Tamil Nadu Suspension of Sentence Rules-1982’ after the application.
On May 21, 1991, a member of the Sri Lankan separatist rebel group ‘Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’ (LTTE) carried out a suicide bomb attack in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, killing the then Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi. Dhanu, a suicide bomber, killed Rajiv Gandhi by detonating a bomb during an election rally.
In May 1999, the country’s Supreme Court upheld the death sentences of Perarivalan, Murugan, Santhan and Sriharan, accused in the murder. In 2014, the Supreme Court of India commuted the death sentences of Santhan and Murugan, along with Perarivalan, to life imprisonment for delaying a decision on their plea for life.
Meanwhile, in 2001, this top court of the country reduced the death sentence of the other accused Sriharan to life after considering the upbringing of the teenage girl.
