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The Sri Lankan war that killed Rajiv Gandhi: Story of India, Sri Lanka and IPKF | The Hindu Explains
The creator's telling of the case, the strongest entry point on file.
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On 21 May 1991, Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India, was assassinated in a suicide bombing at an election campaign rally in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. He was campaigning for the Indian National Congress ahead of the 1991 Indian general election. At approximately 10:10 pm, Gandhi arrived at the rally and began walking toward the dais while being garlanded by well-wishers and party workers. At 10:20 pm, Kalaivani Rajaratnam — a 22-year-old member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) known by the assumed names Thenmozhi Rajaratnam and Dhanu — bent to touch his feet and detonated an RDX explosive belt concealed beneath her clothing. The blast killed Gandhi, Rajaratnam, and at least 14 others, and injured 43 bystanders, bringing total casualties to 59. Among those killed were several police officers, Congress party workers, a ten-year-old girl, and a photographer, Haribabu, who was later identified as a co-conspirator; his camera and film, capturing the attack, were recovered intact.
The Indian government transferred the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) the day after the assassination. A special investigation team led by D. R. Karthikeyan concluded that the LTTE was responsible, a finding upheld by the Supreme Court of India. Investigators and later court findings linked the motive to Gandhi's earlier deployment of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka and his stated intention, made in an August 1990 interview, to redeploy the IPKF against the LTTE if re-elected.
A separate inquiry, the Justice J. S. Verma Commission, examined security lapses and concluded in its June 1992 report that security arrangements had been adequate in principle but were disrupted by local Congress leaders. The Narasimha Rao government initially rejected the findings before accepting them, though no recommendations were acted upon. A further inquiry, the Jain Commission, named additional individuals and entities as suspected of involvement, including allegations against the cleric Chandraswami and separately against former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi; the leak of this report in November 1998 contributed to the Congress party withdrawing support from the United Front government of I. K. Gujral.
The case was tried under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA). On 28 January 1998, a designated TADA court in Chennai sentenced all 26 accused to death, a verdict criticized by human rights groups over closed-door proceedings and non-disclosure of witness identities. On appeal, the Supreme Court on 11 May 1999 confirmed death sentences for only four of the convicts, including S. Nalini Sriharan, commuting the rest to prison terms. Nalini's death sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment following a clemency petition from Sonia Gandhi. Three other convicts — V. Sriharan alias Murugan, T. Suthendraraja alias Santhan, and A. G. Perarivalan — had clemency pleas rejected in 2011, and executions scheduled for September 2011 were stayed by the Madras High Court. On 11 November 2022, the Supreme Court of India ordered the release of six remaining convicts — V. Sriharan, S. Nalini Sriharan, T. Suthendraraja, Robert Pious, Jayakumar, and Ravichandran — following a remission recommendation from the Tamil Nadu government in March 2016. A. G. Perarivalan had previously been released.
