Perarivalan, one of the convicts involved in the killing of late former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi has been set free by the Supreme Court.
Perarivalan was convicted by the special TADA court in 1991 for having provided two 9-volt batteries which were used in the bomb that killed Rajiv Gandhi on May 21st by an LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) suicide bomber during an election rally in Sriperumbudur, in the outskirts of Chennai.
The demand for the release of the convicts of the Rajiv assassination case – Murugan, Santhan, Nalini, Rober Pious, Jayakumar, Ravichandran and Perarivalan – has been a consistent demand made by the Dravidian parties of Tamil Nadu.
In February 2014, the apex court commuted the death sentence of Perarivalan to life imprisonment, along with that of two other prisoners – Santhan and Murugan – on grounds of delay in deciding their mercy pleas by the Union government.
He received parole for the first time in August 2017, to meet his ailing father.
The Supreme Court had earlier granted him bail on March 9, 2022.
Click here to subscribe to The Commune on Telegram and get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.