Nalini Sriharan, A Convict In Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case Freed By SC

Supreme Court (SC) freed Nalini Sriharan and five more convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case after 33 years in jail. Earlier this year in May, one of the convicts in the case, Perarivalan was freed. SC used similar extraordinary powers to free the rest of the convicts.

Sriharan spent nearly 30 years in jail and is the longest-serving woman convict in India. Sriharan comes from a well-educated Malayalam family. Her father was a police inspector in the Tamil Nadu Police and her mother was a nurse in a Chennai hospital. Sriharan herself has a BA in literature and completed her master's degree from jail.

It is speculated that she came in contact with Murugan, a Sri Lankan national and LTTE in 1991 and got influenced to join the LTTE movement. During Rajiv Gandhi's political rally in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, Sriharan was sitting in the crowd when Dhanu detonated the IED which killed Rajiv Gandhi. Reportedly, she attended the event along with the assassin's team, including Sivarasan (key conspirator), Subha (conspirator), Dhanu (human bomb), and Haribabu (photographer).

Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Convict Sriharan Freed

Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in a suicide bombing carried out by a woman member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) group from neighbouring Sri Lanka. Tamil Nadu always claimed seven prisoners played minor roles in the assassination and were duped into taking part in it.

Rajiv Gandhi's assassination case has been a matter of emotions in Tamil Nadu. Irrespective of which state is led, everybody campaigned for their freedom. Court also noted that the Tamil Nadu government recommended the release of convicts to the Governor in 2018. The freedom of Sriharan came across as a state of joy for her lawyer. Her lawyer called the SC's move- 'Magizhchi' (state of joy).

Earlier, Nalini Sriharan's sentence was reduced to a life term on the intervention of former Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also met her in Vellore jail. For now, Congress strongly objected to the Supreme Court order freeing Rajiv Gandhi's assassins.

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