COIMBATORE: As the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case have already spent over two decades in prison, D Pandian, senior CPI leader, appealed to the Central government to have mercy on them and release them immediately.
Addressing a meeting on Friday evening in the city, where his three books Kambanin Arasiyal Kootani, Thiruvalluvarin Arasiyal Porulatharam and Marxia Sinthania Surukkam were released, Pandian said, “It is a literary meeting and I should not speak politics here. However, I appeal to the Central government to have mercy on the seven convicts and release them immediately. I am not arguing that they were innocent, but it is paining to know that they have already spent around 24 years in prison.”
Pandian, who has also written a book Rajiv Gandhiyin Kadaisi Manithulikal (The last minutes of Rajiv Gandhi ) said, “I was the only man with the former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi minutes before he was assassinated at Sriperumpudur.”
A well-read man in Kambaramayana, Pandian explained the compassionate character of Rama: “Though it was queen Kaikeyi, who sent Rama to forest, the latter at the end of the epic, sought a boon to be born as a son to Kaikeyi in his next birth.” “The Central government, which worships Rama and has a goal to build a shrine for him in Ayodhya, should know his benevolence and release the seven convicts immediately ”