Vellore: A day after the Supreme Court ordered the release of six life convicts in the 1991 Rajiv Gandhi assassination case after 31 years in jail, five of them — Nalini Sriharan, her husband Murugan, and Santhan, Robert Payas and Jayakumar — were formally released. free. from Tamil Nadu jails on Saturday night. Convict RP Ravichandran was also due to be released anytime. “It’s a new life for me with my husband and daughter,” she said after the exit. “I thank the Tamils for supporting me,” he said, but denied that he would enter public life. He also thanked the state and central governments. In May, the Supreme Court had used its extraordinary powers to free one of the seven convicts, AG Perarivalan. The same provision applied to the rest, the court said on November 11. He noted that the Tamil Nadu Cabinet had recommended the Governor in 2018 to release the convicts and the Governor was bound by it. This morning, Nalini Sriharan, who was already on parole, visited a local police station to mark her mandatory attendance. After completing the formalities at the special prison for women in Vellore, Nalini was released and went to the central jail from where her husband V Sriharan, alias Murugan, and Santhan were released. Murugan and Santhan are both Sri Lankan nationals and so were taken in a police vehicle to a refugee camp in Tiruchirappalli in the state. Released from Puzhal Jail, two other Lankan nationals — Robert Payas and Jayakumar — were also taken to the refugee camp to be accommodated there. The convict was released in May, Perarivalan, and his mother Arputhammal received these two in Puzhal jail. It was not immediately clear whether Nalini would stay in Chennai or join her daughter in London. “She will get a summons on that,” her lawyer told news agency PTI. Asked about the fate of her husband Murugan, the lawyer said the state government will decide on the deportation. Convict Santhan had already expressed his intention to return to Sri Lanka, he added. While ordering their release, the Supreme Court had said that the convicts had shown “satisfactory conduct”, obtained degrees, written books and also participated in social services. The Congress strongly opposed the Supreme Court’s decision to free Rajiv Gandhi’s killers. He said the party did not agree with the views of Sonia Gandhi and her children Rahul and Priyanka, who have been devotees of mercy to convicts. In 2000, Nalini Sriharan’s sentence was reduced to life imprisonment. Later in 2014, the sentence of the other six convicts was also commuted and then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha recommended their release. Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991, in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu by a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suicide bomber during a public rally. It was seen as retaliation after he sent Indian peacekeepers to Sri Lanka in 1987, only to withdraw them after losing more than 1,200 men in combat.
