‘Unacceptable, erroneous’: Congress criticizes SC’s decision of releasing Rajiv Gandhi’s killers

Expressing displeasure over the Supreme Court’s (SC) decision to release all six convicts serving life imprisonment in the case related to the assassination of Congress leader and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Congress on Friday said it finds the top court’s decision “untenable”.

In a strongly worded statement, Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh said, “The decision of the SC to free the remaining killers of former PM Shri Rajiv Gandhi is totally unacceptable and completely erroneous. The Party criticises it clearly and finds it wholly untenable. It is most unfortunate that the SC has not acted in consonance with the spirit of India on this issue.”

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However, the party’s stance runs counter to the opinions of Congress leaders and Rajiv Gandhi’s son-daughter duo Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

Rahul Gandhi had previously said he went through tremendous pain after his father’s assassination but he holds no anger against those responsible.

“I felt tremendous pain, but I don’t feel any hatred or anger. I forgive them,” Rahul said during an interaction with students at a state-run women’s college in Puducherry in 2021.

Responding to a question posed about providing possible amnesty to the convicts, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had earlier said that the answer to violence does not lie in more violence.

In March 2008, Priyanka visited Nalini Sriharan, one of the convicts, in a prison in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore during which she said, “...meeting Nalini was a way to come to terms with her father’s death.”

Nalini, along with three others, was initially given a death sentence which was later changed into a life term followed by a plea of clemency by Sonia Gandhi.

Applying the May 18 judgment to release A G Perarivalan, another convict in the case, a bench of justices B R Gavai and B V Nagarathna said the judgement of the top court in the case of Perarivalan, is equally applicable in their matter while acquitting the remaining six convicts on the grounds of their good conduct in jail.

The Tamil Nadu government had earlier recommended the pre-mature release of convicts saying that its 2018 aid and advice for the remission of their life sentence is binding upon the Governor.

Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a result of a suicide bombing in Tamil Nadu’s Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991.