Two of the accused jailed over the assassination of former Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi have been on a hunger strike for the third day on Friday demanding that their daughter be allowed to study in India.
CHENNAI: Two of the accused jailed over the assassination of former Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi have been on a hunger strike for the third day on Friday demanding that their daughter be allowed to study in India.
Reports from the high-security Vellore jail say Nalini, an Indian, and Murugan, her Sri Lankan husband, are refusing to have food.
The two have been in the prison, 200 kilometers south of Chennai, since 1991 after their conviction on charges of conspiring to kill Gandhi, who was blown up by a woman member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at an election rally near here.
The couple's 15-year-old daughter was born in jail and brought up in Sri Lanka by Murugan's family. The girl, Arithra, has passed her Class 10 examination and has now applied for a student visa to the Indian high commission in Colombo.
According to Nalini's family, Arithra is good in her studies and wants to pursue higher education in India.
Jail sources said Murugan presented a petition to the deputy inspector general of prisons in Vellore on Wednesday, seeking a student visa for Arithra.
The couple then went on an "indefinite fast" in support of the demand. But so far, the sources said, the Indian authorities have not responded.
Murugan and Nalini, along with several other prisoners co-accused in the Gandhi assassination case, have acquired postgraduate degrees in computer application during their imprisonment.
Nalini's death sentence has been commuted while the clemency petition of Murugan, also sentenced to death, is pending with President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.
Murugan was a member of the LTTE when he came over to India in 1990 and fell in love with Nalini. Nalini was present at the election rally and watched Gandhi getting blown up by the suicide bomber known as Dhanu.
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