{"id":16996,"date":"2022-05-18T15:32:28","date_gmt":"2022-05-18T10:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/?p=16996"},"modified":"2022-05-18T15:32:28","modified_gmt":"2022-05-18T10:02:28","slug":"rajiv-gandhi-assassination-convict-perarivalan-will-walk-free-after-31-years-in-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/rajiv-gandhi-assassination-convict-perarivalan-will-walk-free-after-31-years-in-jail\/","title":{"rendered":"Rajiv Gandhi assassination convict Perarivalan will walk free after 31 years in jail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AG Perarivalan, one of the convicts in former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi\u2019s assassination, who has been in prison for 31 years, will be released, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ndtv.com\/india-news\/rajiv-gandhi-assassination-case-supreme-court-orders-release-of-convict-ag-perarivalan-2985862#pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">According to reports<\/a>, this verdict could also lead to the release of six other convicts in the case, including Nalini Sriharan and her husband Murugan, who is a Sri Lankan national.<\/p>\n<p>The judges led by Justice L Nageswara Rao, announced the verdict, invoking special powers of the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p>Perarivalan was quoted in reports stating that \u201cThis would not have happened without the support and love of the people. I firmly believe there is no need for capital punishment.\u201d He was 19 years old at the time of the assassination, and was accused of buying two 9-volt batteries for Sivasaran, the LTTE man who masterminded it. These batteries were used in the bomb to kill Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.<\/p>\n<p>Perarivalan was earlier sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court, and this was upheld by the Supreme Court, but it was then commuted to life imprisonment.<\/p>\n<p>Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991, at Tamil Nadu\u2019s Sriperumbudur by a woman suicide bomber, identified as Dhanu. He was in an election rally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AG Perarivalan, one of the convicts in former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi\u2019s assassination, who has been in prison for 31 years, will&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1236,"featured_media":16997,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_seo_keywords":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5677,39,583],"class_list":["post-16996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nation","tag-capital-punishment","tag-supreme-court","tag-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1236"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16996"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16999,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16996\/revisions\/16999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}