TN Congress chief opposes release of convicts in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case

Tamil Nadu’s Congress chief Okay S Alagiri opposed the decision by political events, together with its ally DMK for the discharge of the seven prisoners within the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

“It is up to the court to decide whether to release the killers of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi,” he stated in a press release on Saturday. “If they are released, there will be a demand for the release of all Tamil murderers who have been in prison for more than 25 years.”

The demand to launch all seven convicts – Nalini Sriharan, V Sriharan alias Murugan, A G Perarivalan, Santhan, Jayakumar, Robert Payas and P Ravichandran has been gaining momentum because the Supreme Court expressed unhappiness, earlier this week, over the advice for remission of sentence of Perarivalan pending with the Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit for greater than two years.

“We will accept the release of the seven people if the court announces it,” Alagiri stated. “But it is not appropriate for political parties to demand their release.”

The Tamil Nadu Congress Committee’s president’s stance comes within the backdrop of a number of events together with the AIADMK supporting the discharge of the convicts. DMK president MK Stalin wrote to the Governor to simply accept the advice with out additional delay.

In 2014, the Supreme Court commuted the loss of life penalty of Perarivalan and two different convicts (Murugan and Sathan) to life sentences. In 2018, Tamil Nadu authorities had beneficial the discharge of Perarivalan after remitting his life sentence. But the Governor is claimed to be awaiting a report of the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency which is trying right into a ‘larger conspiracy in the case’.

Governor Purohit met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and residential minister Amit Shah in Delhi on November four and on the next day he met vice-president Venkaiah Naidu to debate “important issues of the state.”