Tamil Nadu rejects Nalini’s plea for release (Second Lead)

CHENNAI - The Tamil Nadu government Monday finally turned down the demand for the release of Nalini Sriharan, serving life sentence for the 1991 assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Tamil Nadu Advocate General P.S. Raman submitted the government decision to the Madras High Court, citing the decision of the Prison Advisory Board that had examined her request.

The board, headed by the Vellore district collector, listed eight counts for her non-release, including her reported refusal to express regret over Gandhi’s assassination.

Nalini, an Indian who worked with a private company when she came into contact with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) squad ordered to kill Gandhi, has already spent nearly two decades in prison.

The panel termed Nalini’s crime a severe one and said she had sheltered the killers of the former Indian prime minister and was well aware of the conspiracy to kill him.

It warned that there would be law and order problem if Nalini stayed with her parents in Chennai.

Advocate General Raman submitted to the division bench comprising of Justices Elipe Dharma Rao and K.K. Sasihdharan that the DMK government had accepted the board’s verdict.

The case was filed by Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy, who challenged Nalini’s right for remission.

According to him, Nalini has already got one remission - the reduction of death penalty to life imprisonment.

DMK MP T.K.S. Elangovan told IANS: “The government has accepted the decision of the independent board.”

The Congress party, the ruling DMK’s ally, welcomed the decision to keep Nalini in prison.

Congress legislature party leader D. Sudharsanam told IANS: “Our stand is that of the Tamil Nadu government’s.”

Congress leaders had opposed the release of Nalini and others convicted for the killing of Gandhi at an election rally at Sriperumbudur near here.

Gandhi was blown up when a young woman suicide bomber from the LTTE detonated explosives strapped on her body while pretending to touch his feet on May 21, 1991.

Nalini was seated among the audience at the rally along with another LTTE woman member. According to investigators, she was part of the “killer team” that wanted to kill Gandhi for sending the Indian Army to Sri Lanka in 1987. The troops fought the LTTE for over two years.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi had said the state government would consult New Delhi on Nalini’s plea that she should be released since she has spent nearly two decades in prison.

Originally, Nalini was convicted on 16 counts of murder and awarded death penalty. Later, at the intervention of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the slain Rajiv Gandhi’s widow, this was commuted to life imprisonment.

In September last year, Nalini filed a petition in the Madras High Court asking the Tamil Nadu government to convene the advisory board to consider her case for release from jail.

In her petition, she said that she was entitled for release in 2005 itself as she had completed 14 years in jail.

After her arrest, Nalini had married LTTE activist known by his nom de guerre Murugan. He is also in prison for the Gandhi killing. They now have a grown up daughter.

In March last year, Priyanka Vadra, daughter of Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi, visited Nalini in the prison. Nalini cited the meeting while demanding her release.