Rajiv Gandhi murder:

Court stays hanging of plotters

A court in southern India has stayed the execution of three men in connection with the 1991 assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The men known as Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan were to be hanged at a jail in the State of Tamil Nadu on September 9.

The date for the hangings was set after Indian President rejected mercy pleas from the men.

The killing of Rajiv Gandhi by a LTTE suicide bomber shocked India. All three of the condemned men were convicted of plotting the assassination.

Murugan and Santhan are from Sri Lanka and Perarivalan is an Indian Tamil. They were LTTE members.

In 2006, the Tigers expressed “regret” for the murder.

The Supreme Court in 1999 confirmed the death sentences of the three men, but commuted capital punishment to life imprisonment for Nalini Sriharan, an Indian Tamil woman married to Murugan who was also convicted in connection with the assassination.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J Jayalalitha, said on Monday that she did not have the power to annal the death sentences or put the executions on hold. But the three men filed a petition in the Madras High Court on Monday.

The court stayed the execution for eight weeks and asked the government to file an affidavit in that time with their response to the court petition.

The execution order has sent ripples of unrest through southern India, correspondents say.

Ms Jayalalitha appealed to the public “not to act on impulse” when a woman died after setting herself on fire demanding that the three men’s lives be spared.

Earlier, the leader of the State’s opposition DMK party, M Karunanidhi, appealed to the federal and the state government to save the lives of the condemned men.

The death penalty is rare in India. The last execution was in 2004 when a 41- year-old former security guard was hanged for the rape and murder of a 14-year- old schoolgirl.

BBC