This content was published on November 11, 2022 – 09:50 am November 11, 2022 – 09:50 am
New Delhi, 11th November (EFE) .- India’s Supreme Court this Friday ordered the release of six people convicted of murdering ex-President Rajiv Gandhi in a suicide attack after he spent more than 30 years in prison, a Decision that was “unacceptable,” according to the historic Congress Party of the Nehru Gandhi dynasty.
A chamber of the Asian country’s highest judiciary has ordered the release of Nalini Srihar, Robert Pais, Ravichandran, Suthenthira Raja, Shriharan and Jaikumar after serving more than 30 years in prison, Indian trade publication Live Law reported.
The behavior of the six inmates during their detention was “satisfactory”, said the Supreme Court, which last May ordered the release of AG Perarivalan, who was also convicted and was 19 on the day of the attack in 1991.
The order was condemned by the Congress party, which is currently the main opposition party and of which Rajiv Gandhi was the leader at the time of his assassination.
Former minister and secretary-general in charge of communications for the formation, Jairam Ramesh, condemned that “the Supreme Court’s decision to release the remaining assassins of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi is totally unacceptable and wrong”.
“The Supreme Court did not act on behalf of India in this case,” Ramesh said.
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated while campaigning as opposition leader for the 1991 general election and used his style to salute the people of the southern Indian city of Sriperumbudur, where thousands of people had gathered to get close to this popular politician.
Among the crowd, an insurgent from the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers (LTTE) approached to touch the leader’s feet in an alleged gesture of respect, but at the same time detonated a powerful bomb strapped to her body.
Gandhi has been criticized for sending a peacekeeping force to northern Sri Lanka, the island’s Tamil Hindu stronghold, as prime minister in 1987, which contained the insurgent movement in its conflict against the country’s Sinhala and Buddhist majority.
The grandson of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the son of President Indira Gandhi, who was also assassinated by Sikh extremists in 1984, Rajiv headed the Indian government from that year until 1989, when the Congress party lost the elections.
The six released are among 26 sentenced to death in 1998 for the suicide bombing that killed 15 others alongside Gandhi, an order the Supreme Court overturned the following year, acquitting 19 of them.
The seven sentenced to death were commuted to life imprisonment in 1999, 2000 and 2014. EFE
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