Convicted for Rajiv Gandhi's assassination Nalini Murugan moves UNHRC

Nalini moved petition seeking release from jail three days after Rajiv Gandhi's death anniversary

Convicted for her role in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, Nalini Murugan has moved the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Nalini convicted for the murder of former Prime Minister of India has urged the global human rights body to apply pressure on India to release her from prison.

In her petition to the UNHRC high commissioner in Geneva, Nalini has alleged that she has suffered discrimination at the hands of the Indian government as well as the state government of Tamil Nadu. She claimed that she had become eligible for release from prison in 2001 but had been forced to continue being a prisoner.

Nalini was arrested days after Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a suicide bomber of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The then Prime Minister of India was assassinated by the former Sri Lankan militant organisation in Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991. Nalini along with 25 others was convicted for being part of the conspiracy to murder Rajiv Gandhi and has been in jail ever since her arrest. She was convicted in 1998.

"I have been denied the benefit of early release from prison, which is available to all life convicts in the country. This, only on the ground that I was convicted in the case of the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. I have not been considered for early release from prison only on political grounds, not on legal grounds," Nalini has said in the petition sent through her lawyers.

Nalini has moved the Madras High Court multiple times seeking release from jail but the state government has opposed her pleas and claimed that she had to spend her life in jail. Nalini in her petition highlighted that Gopal Vinayak Godse, a conspirator in Mahatma Gandhi assassination case, was released from prison in 1965.

OneIndia News