Rajiv Gandhi assassination: Nalini knocks UNHCR door seeking release

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 …read more