AG Perarivalan, an LTTE sympathiser, has served over 30 years in jail for buying the two nine-volt batteries that were used in the suicide-bombing belt in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination of 1991
Arrested at the age of 19 in the case, AG Perarivalan was sentenced to death in May 1999. He was accused of purchasing the nine-volt battery used to trigger the belt bomb that killed former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. PTI
The wait for remission for AG Perarivalan — one of the seven convicts — serving a life imprisonment term for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, continues.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court reserved its order on a plea filed by Perarivalan, seeking remission of his sentence. Bar and Bench reported that a bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao, BR Gavai, and AS Bopanna was dealing with the specific issue regarding the power of the Governor to refer such petitions to the President of India when the State Cabinet has already given its recommendation for remission or pardon.
As the case drags on in the Supreme Court, we take a look back at the Rajiv Gandhi assassination and what role did he play in the event that changed the course of the nation.
AG Perarivalan and the Rajiv Gandhi case
A G Perarivalan, alias Arivu, is the son of Tamil poet Kuyildasan.
Now 50-years-old, Perarivalan was a teenage sympathiser of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). He was 19 when then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated at a rally in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, on the evening of 21 May 1991.
Investigations led to Perarivalan’s arrest on 11 June 1991 and it was charged that he was the one who had bought the two nine-volt batteries used in the bomb belt and handed them over to LTTE chief Sivarasan, the mastermind of the operation.
It was also charged that Perarivalan had taken Sivarasan to a motor shop days before the assassination and bought a motorcycle in his name, but provided a wrong address.
Perarivalan’s confession taken under the now discontinued Terrorism And Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) had read, “Moreover, I bought two nine volt battery cells (Golden Power) and gave them to Sivarasan. He used only these to make the bomb explode.”
However, in 2013, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) official V Thiagarajan revealed that he had altered Perarivalan’s statement, recorded while in custody, to make it a confession statement.
The former CBI officer said that Perarivalan had not actually said the second part. In fact, Perarivalan had actually told him that he was not aware of the reason for buying the batteries, Thiagarajan told The News Minute.
“Arivu told me that he did not know why they asked him to buy that (the battery). But I did not record that in the confession statement. Then, the investigation was in progress, so that particular statement I did not record. Strictly speaking, law expects you to record a statement verbatim… we don’t do that in practice,” he said in a documentary released in 2013, reported The Hindu.
Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi died as a result of a suicide bombing in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu on 21 May 1991. PTI
Time in jail
Perarivalan has spent a long time in jail, in Vellore and Puzhal Central prisons in Tamil Nadu — for over three decades.
Initially, he was sentenced to death by a TADA court in 1998 along with 25 others for their role in the assassination.
In 2014, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court.
The Indian Express reports that Perarivalan used his time in prison to complete undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from Indira Gandhi National Open University, as well as to procure more than eight diploma and certificate courses.
His legal battles
Perarivalan has maintained his innocence right through his incarceration and has fought many a legal cases to be released.
In 2014 after the Supreme Court had commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment, the apex court had also said that the imprisonment of the seven convicts would be subject to remission rules of Tamil Nadu, allowing for prisoners to be released after 14 years based on good conduct.
Following this, the Jayalalithaa administration had announced that her government will release all seven convicts from jail. But the Supreme Court stayed the order by Jayalalithaa’s government and asked the Tamil Nadu to maintain status quo.
The next year, Perarivalan filed a mercy (remission) plea with the Tamil Nadu governor, stating that he had undergone solitary confinement in prison for over 24 years. When he received no response, his mother moved a plea on his behalf in the Supreme Court.
The Tamil Nadu government in 2016 sent a proposal to the Centre asking for remission of the life sentences for all the seven convicts. However, two years in, the Centre rejected the state’s proposal, telling the Supreme Court that the remission of their sentence would set a “dangerous precedent” and have “international ramifications”.
However, the apex court rejected the Centre’s petition and said that that the governor could take a decision on the pardon plea as he “deemed fit”. The governor chose to sit on the Cabinet’s recommendation of releasing Perarivalan and the other convicts in the case.
The governor’s inaction upset the Supreme Court, who in January 2021 warned that the court may be forced to take a decision. Instead of acting on the Supreme Court’s diktat, the governor, then forwarded the mercy plea to President Ram Nath Kovind in February 2021.
As the hearing over the Governor’s decision dragged on, the Supreme Court granted bail to Perarivalan on 9 March, taking into account that he had already spent more than 30 years in jail.
With inputs from agencies
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