Prabhakaran should be arrested and prosecuted in India: Cong

Highlighting its tough stand against LTTE, the Congress on Friday asserted in the Tamil Nadu Assembly it won't relent till the Tigers' Chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, a proclaimed offender in the Rajiv Gandhi Assassination case, was arrested, extradited and prosecuted in India.

Speaking on the debate on the motion of thanks to the governor for his address to the Assembly, senior Congress member D Yashoda, recalling the killing of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi at Sriperumbudur near here, said the main accused Prabhakaran was yet to be arrested.

"While some of them, including Nalini and her husband Sriharan alias Murugan, have been arrested Prabhakaran is yet to be nabbed. We will not relent till he is arrested and prosecuted," she said.

At this point, CPI-M floor leader K Balabharathi intervened and asked the Congress whether it was the main demand or policy of the Congress, to which Congress legislature party leader D Sudarshanam replied in the affirmative "there is no doubt".

Prabhakaran himself had confessed to the killing of Gandhi when he described that episode as a "tragic incident" during a press conference some years back. Our policy is to extradite and prosecute him in India, Sudarshanam asserted, amidst loud thumping of the benches by members of the Congress, whose support is crucial to the survival of the DMK Government in the state.