Her husband Sriharan alias Murugan, a Sri Lankan Tamil, is also a life convict in the assassination case
Nalini Murugan, a life convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, has knocked at the doors of the United Nations Human Rights Commission seeking its intervention in urging the Indian government to release her from prison, as she has already spent 26 years in jail.
In the petition sent to the High Commissioner of the UNHRC in Geneva, Switzerland, Nalini has alleged that she has suffered discrimination at the hands of the Indian and Tamil Nadu government for “more than 16 years since I had become eligible for release from prison as early as 2001.” Her husband Sriharan alias Murugan, a Sri Lankan Tamil, is also a life convict in the assassination case.
“At the time of my arrest on June 13, 1991, I was pregnant and gave birth to my daughter in prison in 1992. My daughter now lives abroad at her paternal uncle’s house in the United Kingdom. I am the only woman prisoner in the country who has spent more than 26 years as a life convict,” she said, pointing out that even Gopal Vinayak Godse, a conspirator in the Mahatma Gandhi assassination case, was released from prison in 1965, though he was sentenced to deportation for life.
Days after Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suicide bomber in Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991, Nalini was arrested and has been in jail since. After the trial court sentenced all the 26 accused to death, the Supreme Court acquitted 19 persons and three were sentenced to imprisonment for life while upholding the death penalty for four including Nalini and her husband Murugan in 1998. Nalini’s sentence was commuted to life by Tamil Nadu Governor in April 2000 on the basis of the state cabinet following Sonia Gandhi’s public appeal. In February 2014, the Supreme Court commuted the death penalty of the remaining three convicts to life for the 11-year delay in deciding their mercy petitions.
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