'Had no role in assassination of India’s ex-PM Rajiv Gandhi,' says Nalini Sriharan, one of released convicts

“I had no role” in the assassination of India’s former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, Nalini Sriharan, one of the six convicts who was let go by the Supreme Court, said after she stepped out of the prison on Monday.

She further asserted that it was her husband’s friends who plotted the killing, and added that she was declared prime convict just because of her acquaintance with them.

."Otherwise, I would have ended my life. Do you think I have murdered the former prime minister? 17 murder cases have been framed against me," the 55-year-old Nalini said in her first reaction to the media after she stepped out of the special prison for women in Vellore, about 150 kilometres from southern Chennai city.

Her husband Murugan -- a Sri Lankan national -- along with another convict Santhan, also from Sri Lanka, were released from the Vellore prison. Besides them, two other Sri Lankan nationals -- Robert Payas and Jayakumar -- were released from the Puzhal prison here. All four were taken to the special refugee camp in Tiruchirappalli to be lodged there.

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Recalling her meeting with ex-PM’s daughter and current Congress party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in jail, she said, “She is a very kind person. She was an angel. And she made me respect myself because... we were not treated properly in jail.”

Nalini said that Priyanka got very emotional when Priyanka was asked about her father’s killing.

"She asked me about her father's killing. She got emotional for her father. She cried too," she said at a news conference.

Last week on Friday, the Supreme Court freed Nalini Srihara, apart from five other remaining convicts, who were serving life term for about three decades in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

The apex court used its earlier judgement in releasing another convict A G Perarivalan, saying that it was equally applicable to them.

Nalini said that she wanted to join her daughter in London and be a homemaker taking care of her husband and her daughter. She hoped that her husband too would join her soon.

Nalini was the longest-serving woman prisoner in the country. She was 24 when she got arrested in 1991. She worked as a stenographer at a private firm when she met Murugan, a member of the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

(With inputs from agencies)

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