Modi Calls Jaya Bluff By Refusing To Let The Killers Of Rajiv Gandhi Go Free

The Centre’s decision to refuse permission to the Tamil Nadu government to release the killers of Rajiv Gandhi is the correct one. This comes after the Supreme Court curtailed the powers of state governments last December in releasing criminals convicted for heinous crimes.

The Supreme Court judgment came in the wake of the Tamil Nadu government’s unseemly haste in trying to release the three men convicted for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. Their sentences were earlier commuted to life by the court in 2014.

In the run-up to the state assembly elections due mid-May, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa tried to go one-up on her opponents by writing a letter to the Centre for the early release of the killers – Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan – on humanitarian grounds.

It is good that the Modi government has called the bluff of Jayalalithaa by not complying with her request. This could be because the BJP is not a contender for any major political gains in the assembly elections, but it is still the right decision.

Quite apart from the fact that Jaya’s cynical letter was about playing to the gallery ahead of the assembly elections, letting the convicts go would have dented the government’s credibility about the fairness and even-handedness with which justice is meted out in terrorist cases.

In other words, the only terrorists to face the gallows were three Muslims, with Yakub Memon being the third having been hanged last year for his role in the 1993 Mumbai blasts.

If the three killers of Rajiv Gandhi, and four others (Sri Lankan Tamils who were also convicted in the Rajiv case) had been freed purely because it was expedient in the context of the forthcoming assembly elections, the message sent out would be that only convicts without mainstream political support will be sent to the gallows. Hardly an advertisement for the fairness of the Indian justice system.

There is clearly no case for freeing the seven people convicted for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and 17 others on that fateful day in Sriperumbudur. This is particularly true since three of those death sentences were commuted. They have already got the best possible deal.

The BJP would have courted folly if it had listened to Jayalalithaa. Even politically, the assumption that Tamil voters are excited about freeing these convicts is flawed. Tamil voters probably could not care less about the convicts, just as they did not raise a murmur when the Sri Lankan army eliminated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) systematically.

The only people who may want to give this issue top billing are the remnants of LTTE sympathisers in Tamil Nadu – and these may be just a handful.