SC releases convicts in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case; Congress disagrees, Sonia Gandhi approves

The Indian National Congress today expressed its annoyance at the Supreme Court decision to free Nalini Sriharan and five other convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, even as the party disagreed with Sonia Gandhi, who had pleaded for their release from prison.

The party has announced that it would seek legal remedy.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhivi stated that Sonia Gandhi is entitled to her personal view, but the party does not agree with the release of those associated with Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination.

According to Singhvi, “Rajiv Gandhi's assassination was not like any other crime. This is a national issue, not a local murder.”

Nalini Sriharan, one of the convicts in the case, approached the Supreme Court when in May, it used special powers to free one of the convicts, A G Perarivalan.

All seven convicts in the case have spent more than 30 years in prison.

Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991, at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu, by a woman suicide bomber of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) group.

Seven convicts were sentenced to death for their role in the killing.

The then Congress President and Rajiv Gandhi’s wife Sonia Gandhi’s intervention helped the reduction of Sriharan’s sentence to life imprisonment in 2000. Sonia Gandhi had filed a clemency petition that pointed out that Nalini was pregnant when she was arrested.

The sentence of six more convicts was also commuted in 2014. The same year, the then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha initiated moves to free them.

In 2008, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the daughter of Rajiv Gandhi, met Nalini in a prison in Tamil Nadu's Vellore.

Congress leader and spokesperson Jairam Ramesh, had said: “The decision of the Supreme Court to free the remaining killers of former PM Rajiv Gandhi is totally unacceptable and completely erroneous. The Congress party criticises it clearly and finds it wholly untenable…..it is most unfortunate that the Supreme Court has not acted in consonance with the spirit of India on this issue."