More than three decades after former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) chairperson Sonia Gandhi says she has never seen the photograph of her husband's remains taken in the aftermath of the explosion, as her children Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra shielded her from the horrific images.
In her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, the former Congress president recalls how Rahul and Priyanka instructed their staff to ensure that newspapers and magazines were vetted before being handed over to her, keeping her from seeing the photographs of the assassination that were repeatedly published in the media.
"Rahul and Priyanka had given the staff instructions that no newspaper or magazine was to be given to me directly. Everything had to be vetted by them," she writes.
"They were shielding me from the horrific image of their slain father that had been published in our print media and would be reprinted again and again," she adds.
Reflecting on the care shown by her children during the difficult period, Sonia Gandhi says she had become "a child" who needed protection, while Rahul and Priyanka had taken on the role of "the parents".
"To this day, more than thirty years later, I have not seen the picture of Rajiv's remains after the explosion," she writes.
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991, at an election rally in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. A woman suicide bomber belonging to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), posing as a supporter approaching him with a garland, detonated explosives strapped to her body, killing the former prime minister and 14 others.
(With inputs from PTI)