JOIN USSignificantly choosing September 9, the date earlier fixed by the Vellore Prison authorities to hang the three convicts—Perarivalan, Murugan and Santhan (the last two are LTTE cadres)—Pradesh Congressmen organised the fast expressing solidarity with the victims’ families demanding justice for them and to the memory of Rajiv Gandhi brutally killed by the LTTE.
(The hanging of the trio that was to take place on September 9 has been stayed by Madras High Court for eight weeks.)
Former Union minister and TNCC president E V K S Elangovan presided over the fast, which was joined by scores of senior state Congress leaders and partymen, including former TNCC chief Kumari Ananthan.
Speaker after speaker asserted that the bid to commute the three convicts’ deaths penalty to life and release was a gross travesty of the justice process. “We can neither forget nor forgive the Rajiv killers,” they shouted.
Relatives of police officials and civilians killed in the blast at Sriperumbudur including T K S Mohammed Iqbal, former SP, Chengalpattu, Edward Joseph, a Special Branch Police Inspector and Rajaguru, former Inspector, Pallavaram Police Station, participated in the fast.
The Congress speakers blasted the clemency moves by leaders of various parties like MDMK, PMK, Dalit Panthers and ‘Naam Tamizhar’, whose pro-LTTE sympathies are well known.
They did not spare even the DMK supremo M Karunanidhi, their political ally at the Centre, for demanding revocation of the death penalty on the three convicts.
This issue was being used to again “whip up Tamil revivalism and secessionism”, Congressmen warned and explained how clemency in this case was untenable.