While the Tamil Nadu BJP is clueless on the move by the AIADMK Government to release the seven life-convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the Congress in the State came out openly against it. “The move by the AIADMK Government to release the seven life-convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case is against all laws in the country. They are no ordinary criminals,” said Vijayadharini, MlA and chief of Tamil Nadu Mahila Congress.
Speaking to The Pioneer, Vijayadharini said she had made it clear on the floor of Tamil Nadu Assembly in February 2014 when the AIADMK Government introduced a resolution seeking the release of the seven accused V Sriharan alias Murugan, T Suthendraraja alias Santhan, A G Perarivalan alias Arivu, Jayakumar, Robert Payas, Ravichandran and Nalini. “I walked out of the House in protest against the resolution as I was the only Congress MlA present in the House at that time,” Vijayadharini said.
She said no convicts should be given two clemencies, pointing out that four among the accused had been sentenced to death and were given clemency by the President of India.
Out of the seven convicts, Perarivalan, Santhan, Murugan and Nalini had been sentenced to death by the apex court. But Nalini’s death sentence was commuted to life sentence by the Tamil Nadu Government in 2000 while the death sentence of the first three were commuted by the Supreme Court in 2014.
AIADMK’s move to remit the life sentence of these convists was struck down by the SC in December 2015 which ruled that the State Government had no power to release the convicts without the Centre’s concurrence.