Lankan convict in Gandhi assassination case passes away

One of the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case who was released in October, Sri Lankan national
Suthenthiraraja alias Santhan has passed away in a hospital in Chennai, India.

He was admitted to a Chennai hospital recently in a critical condition. 

Santhan alias Suthenthiraraja, one of the seven life convicts granted premature release in the case, had requested  President Ranil Wickremesinghe to help him return to the country and live with his aged mother.

He had sent a petition to the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo.

Santhan said he was lodged in the Tiruchi special camp where foreign nationals facing criminal charges or having no valid documents are kept. Since he could not meet his mother during his 32 years of incarceration, he appealed to the president to allow him to visit Sri Lanka and take care of his mother.

Petitions for renewal of his national identity card and passport were pending with the High Commission, he said.

A.G. Perarivalan was the first to be granted premature release by the Supreme Court in May 2022, six other convicts — Nalini, Ravichandran, S. Jayakumar, Santhan, Murugan and B. Robert Payas — were released six months later.

The Tamil Nadu Cabinet passed a resolution in September 2018, recommending the release of the seven life convicts; but the Governor, instead of taking a decision, referred the matter to the Centre.

Finally, the Supreme Court exercised extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution and ordered the release of the life convicts.

Robert Payas and Jeyakumar, also Sri Lankan nationals who have been kept in the Tiruchi special camp, have decided not to return home, fearing a threat to their life. Both have moved the Madurai Bench of the Madras High court seeking relief.