Tamil Nadu Cabinet to decide today on release of Rajiv Gandhi convicts
Chennai: The State Cabinet is meeting at the Secretariat here on Sunday evening to consider the release of all the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case in the wake of the Supreme Court's directive to TN Governor to consider the mercy plea of Perarivalan.
Governor must take a decision as he "deemed fit" on the mercy petition filed on December 30, 2015, the SC bench comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi, Navin Sinha and K M Joseph had said in its order on Thursday, while disposing off a writ petition filed by the Centre in 2014 opposing the decision of the then Jayalalitha Government to release all the seven convicts.
With state law minister C V Shanmugam reiterating, even on Saturday, that the 'Amma' Government had taken a policy decision already to release all the seven convicts, it is only to be expected that the process of facilitating the freedom of these persons, languishing in jail for over 27 years, would have a free flow and they would soon be released.
The Supreme Court has asked the Governor to take the decision as he may "deem fit". That being the case, would be the Governor go against the decision taken by the President of India in rejecting the mercy petitions of the seven convicts on June 15, 2016, is the question worrying a few in the political and legal circles here. "But considering the deep human rights issues involved and the fact that the family of Rajiv Gandhi has repeatedly expressed desire that these seven should be freed, we hope there will be no further impediment to their release", said a lawyer, requesting anonymity.
Those familiar with the LTTE ways have argued time and again, on various platforms, that most of those accused in the Rajiv assassination case were not aware of the gruesome murder and were only 'minor pawns' used by the LTTE leader Prabhakaran to carry out the belt-bomb blast on May 21, 1991. The Tiger chief and his shrewd intelligence chief Pottu Amman had never discussed and revealed the details of any major operation with even the top leaders in the group, keeping the information only to the small core group carrying out the job, so as to ensure top secrecy and zero-failure due to information leaking.
This being the case, it would be inhuman to continue to keep the seven convicts in the jail if most of them have suffered so long for no fault of theirs, argue the rights groups. The DMK at its meeting of district secretaries, MPs and MLAs, at Chennai on Saturday adopted a resolution demanding that the TN Cabinet "should meet immediately to pass a resolution for the release of the seven and send that to the Governor for clearance".
