Former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a suicide bombing in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu on 21 May 1991. The incident resulted in the deaths of 17 people including Rajiv Gandhi and the perpetrator, 22-year-old Kalaivani Rajaratnam, a member of the Tamil militant organization Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
When Rajiv Gandhi was the prime minister, he sent the Indian Army as a part of a peace keeping force in 1987 to intervene in the Sri Lankan civil war between the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE. The assassination was carried out before the 1991 Indian general election, in which, the Rajiv-led Indian National Congress was projected to win the majority seats. LTTE suspected that if Rajiv won, he would send the Indian forces, which had been pulled out in 1990, back to Sri Lanka.
An extensive investigation was carried out by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Central Bureau of Investigation, led by D. R. Karthikeyan. The SIT named 41 individuals in its initial chargesheet filed on the case. About 25 LTTE members, including the key conspirator Sivarasan and 12 members on the chargesheet, committed suicide during the investigation of the case. Three individuals—including LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran and intelligence chief Pottu Amman—were declared absconding. The other 26 individuals on trial were initially sentenced to death by a TADA court in 1998. However, on subsequent appeal to the Supreme Court of India, only seven were convicted and 19 other were released. Of the seven convicts, the four who were given the death sentence were never hanged, and all were released from prison in 2022.
Subsequent accusations of conspiracy have been addressed by two commissions of inquiry and have brought down at least one national government, the government led by Inder Kumar Gujral in 1998. The Rajiv Gandhi Memorial was opened in 2003 at the site where the bombing took place. The event has been the subject of several books and media.
Background
The Sri Lankan civil war started in 1983 when Sri Lankan Tamil groups engaged in an insurgency against the Government of Sri Lanka. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), led by Velupillai Prabhakaran, was the foremost of these groups, and sought the formation of an independent state of Tamil Eelam from the northern and eastern portions of Sri Lanka. Both the government and the LTTE were involved in numerous activities of violence during the war. Rajiv Gandhi became the Prime Minister of India in October 1984 after the assassination of his mother, Indira Gandhi. While India has been covertly supporting the Tamil groups earlier, Rajiv Gandhi sought to engage with both the parties to end the war.
The Indo-Lanka Accord was signed on 29 July 1987, and under the terms of the agreement, the Sri Lankan agreement agreed to a devolution of power to the provinces and withdrawal of the army from the Tamil areas and the militant groups were to surrender their arms. India deployed about 6000 troops as a part of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to enforce the terms of the deal. However, both the parties did not trust the Indian forces and failed to honour the deal. The Indian forces, which were ill-prepared and was deployed with the intention of being involved in a peace keeping role for a short duration, was engaged in a protracted war. The IPKF involved nearly 100,000 military personnel and lost 1,166 during its deployment, which ended in 1990.
The Rajiv Gandhi led-Indian National Congress government had lost power in the 1989 Indian general election, and V. P. Singh became the prime minister. However, following the fall of the Chandra Shekhar-led government in March 1991, new elections were called for in 1991. The Congress, led by Rajiv Gandhi, projected itself as a unifying force during the crisis. The LTTE feared that if Rajiv Gandhi was voted back to power, he would again send the Indian Army to Sri Lanka.
Assassination
Rajiv Gandhi was campaigning on behalf of the Congress and its state affiliates ahead of the 1991 general elections. He traveled from Visakhapatnam to Sriperumbudur for a campaign on 21 May 1991. He arrived at Madras Airport at 7:00 pm IST, and was driven to the campaign venue in a white Ambassador car, while greeting crowds along the way. He reached the campaign venue in Sriperumbudur at 10:00 pm where he was to address a meeting supporting Congress candidate Maragatham Chandrasekar. While walking towards the dais surrounded by people who greeted him, a bomb exploded at 10:20 pm.
Initially, it was not clear whether the bomb was hurled towards Rajiv Gandhi or detonated remotely. It was reported that the bomb was placed in a flower basket handed over to him by one of those who greeted him. In the aftermath, no organisation claimed responsibility for the attack. Later, it was ascertained that a suicide bombing was the cause of the blast. The bomber, later identified as Kalaivani Rajaratnam (Dhanu), had disguised herself amongst the crowd, approached and greeted Rajiv Gandhi. When she then bent down to touch his feet, she detonated an explosive belt tucked below her dress.
Victims
The blast resulted in death of 17 people including Rajiv Gandhi and his personal assistant Pradeep Gupta. Among the dead were the suicide bomber Kalaivani Rajaratnam and a local photographer, Haribabu, who was later named as a conspirator in the blast. Others killed in the blast include Munusamy, a former member of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Council, Santhani Begum, a Mahila Congress leader, Latha Kannan, a Mahila Congress worker, and her ten-year-old daughter. Security personnel killed in the blast included Ravichandran from the National Security Guard (NSG), and Tamil Nadu Police personnel–Superintendent of Police K. S. Mohammed Iqbal, Inspectors Rajaguru and Edward Joseph, Constables Chandra, Dharman, and Murugan. Three other people–Ethiraju, Darryl Peters, and Saroja Devi, were also killed in the blast. More than 43 people, including police sub-inspector Anushiya Daisy, were injured in the explosion.
Aftermath
Security was tightened across major cities in India with reports of minor violence. The next morning, T. N. Seshan, the Chief Election Commissioner of India, announced the postponement of the last two phases of the 1991 elections. The Government of India declared a week of public mourning.
Sonia Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi's wife, was informed of the incident soon after, and was flown to Madras, along with her daughter, Priyanka Gandhi, the next morning. Rajiv Gandhi's remains were flown to Delhi and was received by President Ramaswamy Venkataraman and Prime Minister Chandra Shekar. The body was sent to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences for an autopsy, reconstruction, and embalming. It was then kept at the Peen Murti House for public viewing. A state funeral was held for Rajiv Gandhi on 24 May 1991 and was attended by dignitaries from several countries. He was cremated on the banks of the Yamuna River.
Investigation, trial and sentencing
Preliminary investigation
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was constituted on 24 May 1991 to investigate the case. The team was led by D. R. Karthikeyan, and consisted of Deputy Inspector Generals Amod Kanth and Radha Vinod Raju, Superintendent of Police Amit Verma, Deputy Superintendent of Police K. Ragothaman, Captain A. K. Ravindran of the NSG, and P. Chandrasekharan, the director of the Forensics Lab of Tamil Nadu Police. It was a "blind case" as no one had taken responsibility for the bombing. The LTTE was one of the groups that were suspects in the bombing. The police recovered a camera from the blast site, which was later ascertained to belong to Haribabu, who was hired by the LTTE to record the operation, but died after venturing too close to the epicentre of the blast. The forensic team were able to recover ten photographs from the camera, one of which showed a woman in an orange salwar holding a garland in her hand and was seen moving towards Rajiv Gandhi. It also captured the photo of a man wearing a pyjama and spectacles standing nearby and posing to be a reporter.
Chandrasekharan, who examined the site, and the victims of the blast, ascertained that the assassination was carried out by a suicide bomber, suspected to be the woman with the garland. Denim fragments, purported to have come from a vest, and dismembered remains of the bomber, led to the conclusion that the bomber wore a explosive laden belt. The explosive was determined to be RDX embedded with approximately 10,000 steel pellets, worn on a 8 cm (3.1 in) wide and 65 cm (26 in) long belt, tucked below her dress. The investigative team ascertained that after garlanding Rajiv Gandhi, the bomber bent down to touch his feet and activated the explosive. As Rajiv Gandhi's face bore the brunt of the blast, it was determined that he probably bent to try and stop her from falling at his feet. The police made plaster models based on the severed head to match with the photograph. DNA analysis was performed to try and ascertain details regarding the bomber. The police published the photographs on the newspaper to generate leads.
Plot
Koneswaran, a young Sri Lankan Tamil man, who was arrested for speeding on his motorbike in Vedaranyam, was investigated due to his suspicious demeanour. He confessed that he was part of the nine-member assassination team that was sent to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi. He further stated that the team was led by Sivarajan, the man with the spectacles seen in one of the photographs, and that they had reached Kodiyakkarai on the Tamil Nadu coast from Jaffna on 1 May 1991. The SIT also recovered phone numbers of Nalini and Robert Payas from a diary belonging to Koneswaran. However, Nalini escaped before the SIT could arrest her.
While Subha Sundaram, Haribabu's mentor asked Haribabu's parents to destroy any evidence he had held, they did not destroy the LTTE propaganda material which he had. Subsequently, based on evidence from an anonymous package containing Haribabu's belongings, the SIT discovered the names of Nalini's partner Murugan and her brother Bhagyanathan. Bhagyanathan and his mother Padma were arrested on 11 June. Bhagyanathan confirmed Sivarajan's role and based on his information, SIT arrested A. G. Perarivalan, Payas, Jayakumar, and Shanmugam, a smuggler, who arranged the explosives used in the blast. Shanmugam's testimony corroborated that his men received the nine member group. Based on Shanmugam's information, the police recovered several cases of explosives and other equipment. Shanmugam later escaped from police custody and was found hanging under doubtful circumstances.
Letters seized by the SIT from Shanmugam's premises confirmed Dhanu and Subha's roles, and the involvement of the LTTE. Further evidence revealed that the assassination was planned by Prabhakaran and LTTE intelligence chief Pottu Amman, which was corroborated later by other former LTTE members. A telephone recording between Prabhakaran and Anton Balasingham, revealed Prabhakaran's plan to kill Rajiv Gandhi, post his meeting with him at Delhi. Meanwhile, LTTE members Athirai and S. Kanagasabapathy were arrested in Delhi.
Interrogation of Payas and Jayakumar revealed that Pottu Amman had planned the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi at Delhi. However, as Sivarasan was confident of accomplishing it in Madras, the Delhi plan was used as a back up. Athirai was sent to Delhi for the purpose, posing as the grand daughter of Kanagasabapathy. They also revealed that team planned to infiltrate a travel agency in Delhi run by a relative of a senior Congress politician. However, the politician denied any links and further investigation of the arrested members of the LTTE did not yield a clear connection between the LTTE and any of the members of the Congress party. Evidence also pointed out that the team conducted a test run of their plot at a meeting attended by former prime minister V.P. Singh in Madras on 7 May 1991.
Manhunt
The SIT launched a manhunt to arrest the remaining eight members of the assassination team and those who helped them. On 14 June 1991, Nalini and Murugan were arrested after a brief stand-off between Murugan and Ravindran of the NSG. Based on the information provided by them, the SIT tracked down LTTE members Gundu Santhan, Arasan and Kulathan to Tiruchirappalli. However, they committed suicide by consuming cyanide, which LTTE cadres often carried with themselves. While the NSG team was equipped with cyanide antidote kits, it proved useless as death occurred within a few minutes after consuming cyanide. The SIT tracked Nehru's radio transmissions to the LTTE headquarters in Sri Lanka, however, they were unable to located him.
On 28 June 1991, Sivarasan, Subha and Nehru escaped in an empty oil tanker from Madras to Bangalore. On 29 July, the police tracked Dixon, an LTTE cadre who supported the operation, in Coimbatore, but he committed suicide. In August, the SIT received information of Sivarasan's escape to Bangalore. While the LTTE tried various methods to extract the remaining members and move them to Sri Lanka, it proved futile. The SIT tracked Sivarasan and his accomplices to a house in Konanakunte on the outskirts of Bangalore. On 18 August, the SIT raided the house and found that five LTTE cadres–Suresh Master, Amman, Nehru, Jamuna, and the boat driver, had committed suicide by swallowing cyanide. Sivarasan had shot Subha before committing suicide. The SIT arrested several other LTTE members and sympathisers in connection with case. On 29 August, the SIT detained Rangan, the last person to be arrested in connection with the case.