Rajiv Gandhi Murder: Tamil Nadu Activists Fret and Fume Over Death Row

By recommending the hanging, the Union home ministry was only sending out a strong message to the state where Tamil nationalism was gaining momentum, she remarked.

Students of Dr. Ambedkar Law College, Chennai, staging a rail roko agitation against the death penalty to Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan, near the Fort railway station on Friday— DC

(CHENNAI, India) - Tamil activists across the state have hit out at the Centre for showing discrimination in rejecting the clemency petition of the three Tamils convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and confirming their death sentences while allowing Parliament attack case convict Afsal Guru, and Ajmal Kasab, held guilty of the Mumbai blasts, to survive.

Tamil Nadu witnessed a spate of agitations by students and activists on Friday demanding that the three death row convicts be released as they have already lived two decades in prison. Law college students took centrestage in the fight to save the trio as they laid siege to the collector’s office in Coimbatore.

Several dozen law students in Chennai blocked the movement of EMUs in the city. The protest echoed in the Assembly with Puthiya Tamizhagam MLA, Dr Krishnasamy, staging a walkout after the Speaker refused to allow him to raise the issue.

“The Centre is undecided on Afzal Guru’s clemency plea as Kashmir CM Omar Abdullah has threatened that the valley would be in flames if Afzal Guru was hanged. But, in Tamil Nadu, except pro-Tamil groups and activists, most others were silent on the fate of Perarivalan, Santhan and Murugan till recently, and, hence, the Centre conveniently recommended their hanging,” remarked rights activist, Prof A. Marx.

“We want death penalty abolished in toto. Be it Bhagat Singh or Nathuram Godse, we condemn both their execution,” he added.

Noted lyricist and activist, Ms Thamarai, said it is a political weapon of the Congress-led Centre which abetted genocide in Sri Lanka.

By recommending the hanging, the Union home ministry was only sending out a strong message to the state where Tamil nationalism was gaining momentum, she remarked.