Rajiv Gandhi killers must stay behind bars
Union Minister for Home Affairs Rajnath Singh's comments in Parliament on Thursday offer a clear indication that the Government is not particularly keen to release the assassins of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Earlier in the week, there was some confusion over this issue, after the Home Ministry had said that it will consider the Tamil Nadu Government's request for remission many had taken this statement as a signal in favour of the convicts. However, now that the Minister has clarified that, while the matter is still being examined, the Government has not just a constitutional but also a moral responsibility to abide by the verdict of the Supreme Court, it is clear which way the wind is blowing. Hopefully, the Government will ensure that the convicts pay the full price for the crime that they committed. The cold-blooded murder of any individual is heinous, but it becomes that much more atrocious when the victim was the head of a Government, representing an entire nation. That the killers were opposed to Rajiv Gandhi's policies does not give them any moral high ground nor is the gravity of their crime diminished by the fact that they were, arguably, pawns in a larger political conspiracy V Sriharan, T Suthendraraja, AG Perarivalan, Jayakumar, Robert Payas, Ravichandran and Nalini Sriharan killed the former Prime Minister of India, and their case has little space for mercy.
Moreover, the state has already been more than fair to the convicts: As per the Supreme Court’s 1999 order, four of the seven convicts were to be hanged (the others got life sentences). However, in April 2000, the Tamil Nadu Governor commuted Nalini Sriharan’s death penalty to a life sentence on the basis of a recommendation from the State Cabinet and a public appeal by Rajiv Gandhi’s widow. In 2014, the Supreme Court commuted the sentences of the remaining three death row inmates because their execution was still to be carried out. In doing so, the apex court placed the blame at the Government's doorstep for failing to take the case to its logical conclusion in a time-bound manner, while taking a compassionate view of the killers and the mental agony they endured through 24 years on death row.
Unfortunately, the AIADMK-led Government in Chennai has consistently sought to politicise this issue, ostensibly to secure the small votebank that has still sympathies for the liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. It tried to release the convicts the day after the Supreme Court commuted their sentences in 2014 and has sought to pull off the same trick this time as well. In 2014, the Supreme Court intervened immediately and stayed the release of the convicts, following objections from the then Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre. later, it also ruled that the Centre's view has primacy in such matters. Yet, the letter that has now been sent by the Tamil Nadu Government states that the decision to remit the sentences has already been taken, and that the administration there is only seeking the Centre’s views on the matter, as required by law. From a legal standpoint, this letter isn’t worth the paper it's written on and Chennai presumably knows it too. It is no coincidence that the it brings up the remission issue only when elections are on the horizon this was as true in 2014 as it is now.