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.
The assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi is a black mark in the history of Tamil Nadu. The act represented a significant threat to India’s sovereignty from a foreign terrorist organization.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin recently wrote to President of India, requesting the release of seven convicts. When a ruling party makes such a demand, it sends a message to people in other states that the whole of Tamil Nadu supports Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. It creates an impression that Tamil Nadu is chauvinistic and continues to support terrorism under the guise of ‘Tamil rights’, which is why we see series being made that portrays Tamils as ‘terrorists’. But that is not the case.
The two contradicting Resolutions voted by the Tamil Nadu Assembly are worth highlighting here. In April 2002, the then AIADMK government passed a resolution in the Tamil Nadu assembly condemning the assassination attempt and demanding the execution of those guilty, including LTTE chief Prabhakaran. According to the resolution, no one from a banned terrorist organization should be permitted to enter Tamil Nadu. However, following the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2009, the Tamil Nadu government takes the exact opposite of the 2002 resolution and adopts a new resolution in favour of Rajiv Gandhi assassination convicts.
What happened in the intervening period?
It is true that many innocent Sri Lankan Tamils were killed in the final war with the LTTE. As a result, the Tamil Nadu people sympathised with the Sri Lankan Tamils after 2009. However, the Tamil fringe groups in Tamil Nadu tried and turned the sympathy in favour of LTTE.
It is to be noted that except Nalini and Perarivalan, the other five convicts in the case are not even citizens of India. They are Sri Lankan nationals and have been convicted for killing a Prime Minister of a country. Imagine the international ramification if these convicts are released on ‘humanitarian’ grounds.
At a time when the world is rallying against terrorism, releasing the assassins of our former Prime Minister would set a bad precedent.
We could have saved ourselves from all these troubles if the convicts had been hanged at that time as soon as they were convicted. But, politicians had to play politics over of national security despite it being not an electoral issue. Even now, instead of demanding the release of the killers, politicians may try to help the well-being of Sri Lankan Tamils and those stranded in refugee camps scrounging here for a living to help them get citizenship in India to lead normal lives.
But that would be too much to expect from the politicians of Dravidian parties.
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