New Delhi: Reacting to the Supreme Court’s order to release the killers of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the Congress termed it “very unfortunate”.
“The Supreme Court’s decision to release the killers of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi is totally unacceptable, completely wrong,” the Congress said in a statement.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh issued a statement on behalf of the party and said, “It is very unfortunate that the Supreme Court did not act according to the spirit of the country. The Congress party unequivocally criticises it and considers it completely unforgivable.”
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991, by a female suicide bomber of Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) group in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu.
Seven convicts were sentenced to death by the court for their role in the murder.
Nalini Sriharan’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2000 after the intervention of Rajiv Gandhi’s wife and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi. In 2008, Rajiv Gandhi’s daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra met her in Vellore jail.
The sentences of six other convicts were also commuted in 2014. That year, the then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa tried to get her released.