E-Paper
Rajiv Gandhi assassination: Convict Nalini donates to CM’s relief fund
On May 11, state chief minister MK Stalin introduced the fund and appealed to people to make donations that would be used for Covid-19 control. According to a government statement released on Tuesday, CMPRF has already collected ₹69 crore in a week
One of the seven convicts in former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination case, Nalini Sriharan, who is presently serving life term in the Vellore women’s prison in Tamil Nadu, donated ₹5,000 to the Chief Minister’s Public Relief Fund (CMPRF) on Tuesday.
On May 11, state chief minister MK Stalin introduced the fund and appealed to people to make donations that would be used for Covid-19 control. According to a government statement released on Tuesday, CMPRF has already collected ₹69 crore in a week. Of this, ₹25 crore has been earmarked to source Remdesivir and other drugs for Covid-19, and another ₹25 crore will be utilised to buy containers to transport liquid oxygen from other states. The donations came from industrialists, actors such as Rajinikanth, and Opposition AIADMK that donated ₹1 crore.
Nalini’s lawyer Pugazhendhi Pandian said she donated the amount from her savings in the prisoners’ cash property account. According to Tamil Nadu prisons guidelines, the wages earned inside the prison and the money given to them by their family is kept in this account. Nalini earned inside the prison by stitching but stopped after the first wave of Covid-19, Pandian said. “She wrote to the police superintendent on Monday that she wants to donate and it was processed today,” he said. “She didn’t give any reason for her donation.”
Also Read | Tamil Nadu invites bids for production of oxygen, concentrators and vaccines
Pandhian said he planned to meet the chief minister and appeal for the release of life convicts, including Nalini, who have spent more than 10 years in prison. Nalini has spent 30 years in jail.
She was sentenced to death for Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu on May 21, 1991, by a suicide bomber belonging to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The sentence was reduced to life term on Sonia Gandhi’s intervention. The Gandhi family has, on several occasions, said that they have forgiven the convicts. In March 2008, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra went to meet convict Nalini in Vellore jail. The Supreme Court had commuted the sentence of the other six convicts in the case.
Nalini’s donation comes on the same day as fellow convict AG Perarivalan’s mother appealed to Stalin to grant parole to her son who has comorbidities and is at a high-risk of contracting the virus inside Chennai’s Puzhal Central Prison. She has been fighting for the release of all the convicts for decades now. In 2018, the Tamil Nadu Cabinet unanimously passed a resolution for the release of all seven convicts and sent it to Governor Banwarilal Purohit. Three years later, Purohit declined to take a decision, saying it was the President who was the competent authority.
