Supreme Court of India orders release of Rajiv Gandhi murder convict | Community | USA Edition

The Supreme Court of India on Wednesday ordered the release of one of the convicts killed in the suicide attack on former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi from more than 30 years in prison.

AG Perarivalan, 19, was arrested on the day of the 1991 attack for allegedly buying two batteries used in the explosives used to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi.

Today’s judgment of the Indian Judiciary marks the end of a long-running legal dispute between the southern state of Tamil Nadu and the central government. Like the rest of the culprits.

Judge L. Supreme Court judges, headed by Nageshwara Rao, will limit the powers of the local governor. Arguing that it was ineffective, they rejected New Delhi’s demand that only the President of India have the power to commute sentences.

Perarivalan received the news at his home, where he had been released on bail since March, and finally announced to the media amidst joy and celebration that justice and truth were on his side.

“I just came out. 31 years of legal battle. I need to breathe a little. Give me a chance,” Perarivalan told reporters. “How do you feel about being a” bird of freedom “now, and what are his plans? According to the Indian Agency PTI. “I clearly believe the death penalty is not necessary,” he added.

He was one of 26 recently sentenced to death in 1998 in a suicide attack that killed 15 more people besides Gandhi, but the following year the Supreme Court reversed and released 19. they.

The death sentences of 7 convicts in 1999, 2000 and 2014 were commuted to life imprisonment. Apart from the one who was released today, six others are in jail.

Tamil Tigers

When he was assassinated in 1991, Rajiv Gandhi was the leader of the main opposition Congress party. The current leader of the party is his wife Sonia Gandhi and their children Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi.

The politician campaigned for the general election that year, and he went on his way to greet the people in the town of Sriperumbudur in South India, where thousands of people approached this famous leader.

Among the crowd, a Sri Lankan Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) militant approached the leader to pay his respects, but at the same time detonated a powerful bomb attached to his body.

Gandhi was criticized for sending a peacekeeping force to the north of Sri Lanka in 1987, which was the island’s Tamil-Hindu stronghold, the rebel movement in the conflict against the country’s Sinhala and Buddhist majority.

Rajiv, the grandson of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the son of President Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by Sikh militants in 1984 and served as head of the Indian government from that year until 1989, when the Congress party lost the election. EFE

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