Editorial Staff
The controversial decision to release the seven assassins convicted in the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister Mr. Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 has evoked mixed responses from people of different sections and regions of the country.
The seven convicts were members of the then Tamil Tiger Elam, a rebel group in Sri Lanka. His murder is considered as retaliation by them in response to Mr. Rajiv Gandhi’s action of sending a peace keeping force to Sri Lanka. This decision to free the convicts was taken by the assembly of Tamil Nadu State Cabinet after the ruling of the Supreme Court to commute the sentence of the convicts, who had already served twenty years awaiting a response to their mercy plea, stating that it is in-human to keep someone to be executed in detention for so long.
The Government of Tamil Nadu has sent the State Cabinet’s decision to the Federal Government for approval. The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Ms. Jaya Lalitha stated that all the seven convicts will be released if they don’t receive a reply from them in the next three days, by the powers vested the state.
Many people in Tamil Nadu favored the decision and there are also many others who disapproved it, including Mr. Rahul Gandhi, son of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi at a meeting in Amethi, who expressed sadness over the decision and said that if a convict can be released after murdering a Prime Minister, how will a common man get justice? But he also said that he is personally against Death Penalty.
