NEW DELHI: Over two decades after the LTTE-orchestrated assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, President Pratibha Patil has turned down the mercy petitions of three convicts in the case, paving way for their execution.The rejection of the clemency petition of the assassins has come nearly a decade after the SC upheld the death sentences of the three men—Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan. The President was their last hope of escaping the gallows.The apex court had commuted the death sentence of Nalini Sriharan, an Indian Tamil woman convicted in the case and Murugan’s wife, to life imprisonment.“The President has rejected the mercy pleas. It happened last week after the President returned from the foreign tour,” presidential spokesperson Archana Datta told Express.The home ministry had sent its opinion on June 21, 2005, which was called back for review on February 23, 2011 and re-submitted to the President this March 8.As per the provisions, the President is the last authority to commute death sentence of a convict in the country. However, there are an increasing number of people on death row who have exhausted all legal options but whose execution is yet to be carried out.The last execution in India was in 2004, when a 41-year-old former security guard was hanged for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old.Considering that the issue of the execution of the three assassins would be a hot potato among the political parties in Tamil Nadu, they may not face the hangman’s noose any time soon.The three men belonged to the LTTE and were convicted for conspiring the May 1991 killing of Rajiv Gandhi by a female suicide bomber. The female “belt-bomb” assassin had pressed the trigger, resulting in the blast that tore apart the then PM at an election rally venue in Sriperumbudur, about 40 km from Chennai. Seventeen others were also killed in the explosion and 44 were injured.In the long-winding prosecution, initially, 41 people —including Tamil Tigers’ chief Velupillai Prabhakaran and two other senior functionaries of the LTTE, were accused of playing a role in assassination. These three were never captured by the Indian authorities.A special court set up under the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act sentenced 26 accused, including five women, to death in the case. Among them was Nalini, the only surviving member of the squad that was formed to kill Gandhi. Four of the accused, including Nalini, were sentenced to death in January 1998. Nalini and Murugan had appealed for clemency on the grounds that if both of them were executed their seven-year-old child would be orphaned. Following this, Nalini’s death sentence was commuted.Earlier this year, the President had rejected two mercy petitions. One plea was of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar of Punjab—found guilty for plotting terror attacks on Punjab SSP Sumedh Singh Saini in 1991 and then Youth Congress president M S Bitta in 1993. The other was of Mahendra Nath Das of Assam, convicted of killing one Hara Kanta Das.
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