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• vandana k

  

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  February 20, 2014 10:06 AM IST

  The convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case would be freed, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa said Wednesday.

  Announcing the government's decision in the assembly, Jayalalithaa said the government would release V.Sriharan alias Murugan, A.G. Perarivalan alias Arivu, T. Suthendraraja alias Santhan, Nalini, Robert Payas, Jayakumar and Ravichandran.
  
  All the seven are convicts in the former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
  
  On Tuesday, the supreme court commuted the death sentence of the three key conspirators to life imprisonment, holding that the 11-year delay in deciding their mercy petitions was unreasonable and de-humanizing.
  
  An apex court bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam, Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Shiva Kirti Singh said: "We commute their death sentence into imprisonment for life. Life imprisonment means end of one's life, subject to any remission granted by the appropriate government."
  
  Conspirators V Sriharan alias Murugan, A.G. Perarivalan alias Arivu and T. Suthendraraja alias Santhan sought the commutation of their death sentence due to the long delay in deciding their mercy petitions. The men are lodged in the Vellore prison in Tamil Nadu.
  
  While Perarivalan is an Indian, the other two are Sri Lankan Tamils. Sriharan was a member of the intelligence wing of the now vanquished Tamil Tigers, whose leader V. Prabhakaran ordered Gandhi's assassination.
  
  A Tamil Tiger woman suicide bomber strapped with explosives concealed under her clothes killed Gandhi by blowing herself up while pretending to touch his feet at an election rally near Chennai May 21, 1991.