Opinion divided on release of Rajiv Gandhi's killer

The plea by Rajiv Gandhi assassination convict Nalini Murugan for premature release from jail and her legal battles have now raised a debate on the fundamental rights of life-term convicts.

“She (Nalini) is seeking release as a matter of right under an amnesty scheme as well as the Prison’s Act. Provisions of the law also allow a convict, whose earlier death sentence has been commuted to life term, to seek release after 14 years in jail,” Nalini’s lawyer M Radhakrishnan told DNA.

Human rights activists too feel that Nalini should be given a chance after 19 years of jail sentence. “It is not only a human rights position today but a position of prison studies that reform of the prisoner is the goal of incarceration,” Henri Tiphagne, executive director of Madurai-based NGO People’s Watch, said.

A well-known psychiatrist felt that the issue was delicate. “Any person in jail for such a long time will surely suffer from depression,” she said.

The Tamil Nadu government is hell-bent on getting Rajiv Gandhi assassination convict Nalini’s release from jail cancelled, making the most of the fresh case against her, after a mobile phone was recovered from her prison cell. Radhakrishnan, however, remained unfazed.

“We will have to study the FIR to know what charges are pressed against her,” he told DNA.