Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi
The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, former prime minister of India, occurred as a result of a suicide bombing in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu, India on 21 May 1991. At least 14 others, in addition to Rajiv Gandhi and the assassin, were killed. It was carried out by 22-year-old Kalaivani Rajaratnam, a member of the banned Sri Lankan Tamil separatist rebel organization Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. At the time, India had just ended its involvement, through the Indian Peace Keeping Force, in the Sri Lankan Civil War.
Subsequent accusations of conspiracy have been addressed by two commissions of inquiry and have brought down at least one national government, the government of Inder Kumar Gujral.
Assassination
Election Campaign and Motorcade in Sriperumbudur
Rajiv Gandhi campaigned on behalf of the Indian National Congress and its state affiliates, such as the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee, in the 1991 Indian general election. On 21 May, after campaigning in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, his next stop was Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. At 8:30 pm, two hours after arriving in Madras, Gandhi was driven by motorcade in a white Ambassador car to Sriperumbudur, stopping along the way at a few other election campaigning venues. Neena Gopal of the Gulf News of Dubai was also in the car, in the back seat with a local candidate, Maragatham Chandrasekar.Assassination at the Sriperumbudur Rally
Gandhi reached the campaign rally in Sriperumbudur at approximately 10:10 pm. He exited his motorcade and began walking towards the dais, where he was to deliver a speech. Along the way, he was garlanded by many well-wishers, Indian National Congress workers, and schoolchildren. Among the thronging hordes, the assassin, Kalaivani Rajaratnam, approached and greeted him. She then bent down to touch his feet, and at precisely 10:20 pm, detonated an RDX explosive-laden belt tucked below her dress. Gandhi, Rajaratnam and 14 others were killed in the explosion that followed, and 43 others were grievously injured. The assassination was caught on film by a local photographer, Haribabu, who also died in the blast but whose camera and film was found intact at the site.Casualties
Apart from former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the suicide bomber Kalaivani Rajaratnam, 15 people perished in the blast:- Dharman, police constable
- Santhani Begum, Mahila Congress leader
- Rajaguru, police inspector
- Chandra, police constable
- Edward Joseph, police inspector
- K. S. Mohammed Iqbal, police superintendent
- Latha Kannan, Mahila Congress worker, who was with her daughter Kokilavani
- Kokilavani, ten-year-old daughter of Latha Kannan, who sang a poem to Gandhi immediately before the blast
- Darryl Jude Peters, attendee and observer
- Munuswamy, former member of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Council
- Saroja Devi, seventeen-year-old college student
- Pradeep K. Gupta, personal security officer of Rajiv Gandhi
- Ethiraju
- Murugan, police constable
- Ravichandran, Black Cat commando
- Haribabu, a conspirator with Kalaivani Rajaratnam
Investigation, Security Lapses, and LTTE Motive
The Supreme Court held that the decision to eliminate Gandhi was precipitated by his interview with Sunday magazine, where he stated that he would send the IPKF to disarm the LTTE if he returned to power. Gandhi also defended the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka accord in the same interview. The LTTE's decision to kill him was perhaps aimed at preventing him from coming to power again. Thereafter, the Justice J. S. Verma Commission was formed to look into the security lapses that contributed to the killing.The final report, submitted in June 1992, concluded that the security arrangements for the former PM were adequate but that the local Congress party leaders disrupted and broke these arrangements.
The findings raised vital questions that political analysts have consistently raised. The Narasimha Rao government initially rejected Verma's findings but later accepted it under pressure. However, no action was taken on the recommendations of the commission.
Sources have indicated that Gandhi was repeatedly informed that there was a threat to his life and that he should not travel to Tamil Nadu. The then governor of Tamil Nadu Bhishma Narain Singh, broke official protocol and twice warned Gandhi about the threat to his life if he visited the state.
Subramanian Swamy said in his book, Sri Lanka in Crisis: India's Options , that an LTTE delegation had met Rajiv Gandhi on 5 March 1991. Another delegation met him around 14 March 1991 in New Delhi.
Journalist Ram Bahadur Rai wrote that:
The message conveyed to Rajiv Gandhi by both these delegations was that there was no threat to his life and he could travel to Tamil Nadu without fearing for his life. I did a series of articles after his assassination that pointed out how, after these meetings, Rajiv became complacent about his security and broke security rules in more than 40 rallies.
Autopsy, State Funeral, and Cremation
Following his assassination, Rajiv Gandhi's mutilated body was airlifted to New Delhi. From the Indira Gandhi International Airport, his body was sent to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi for an autopsy, reconstruction and embalming.A state funeral was held for Rajiv Gandhi on 24 May 1991. His funeral was broadcast live nationally and internationally and was attended by dignitaries from over 60 countries. He was cremated on the banks of the river Yamuna, near the cremation spot of his mother, brother and grandfather. Today, the site where he was cremated is known as Veerbhumi.
CBI Investigation and LTTE Involvement
Immediately after the assassination, the Chandra Shekhar government handed the investigation over to the CBI on 22 May 1991. The agency created a special investigation team under D. R. Karthikeyan to determine who was responsible for the assassination. The SIT probe confirmed the role of the LTTE in the assassination, which was upheld by the Supreme Court of India.The Commission report stated that the year 1989 signified "the perpetuation of the general political trend of indulging the Tamil militants on Indian soil and tolerance of their wide-ranging criminal and anti-national activities". The report also alleged that LTTE leaders in Jaffna were in possession of sensitive coded messages exchanged between the Union government and the state government. "There is evidence to show that, during this period, some of the most vital wireless messages were passed between the LTTE operatives based in Tamil Nadu and Jaffna. These messages, which were decoded later, are directly related to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi", the report stated. The Congress subsequently brought down the United Front government of I K Gujral after the report was leaked in November 1998.
Assassin Kalaivani Rajaratnam and Co-Conspirators
The assassination was carried out by Kalaivani Rajaratnam alias Dhanu. She was born on 26 July 1968 in Kaithady Nunavil, Jaffna Peninsula. It was after joining the LTTE that she came to be known by the assumed name Thenmozhi. Her family hailed from Kupukullai, a small village in Jaffna. She studied in Vavuniya and Batticaloa. She also temporarily lived in Urumpirai. She was inspired by the Tamil militant group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam at a young age, and joined the Black Tigers after an ankle injury. She was known as “captain Akino” and was a flag bearer for female LTTE marches. Another reason why Kalaivani became a Tiger is that her brother was a well-known cadre who had died and she was carrying on the family tradition.Kalaivani was the daughter of a Sri Lankan Tamil man named A. Rajaratnam and his second wife. A. Rajaratnam's first wife died during childbirth in 1962, when he was visiting tea estates. Rajaratnam was described as Velupillai Prabhakaran's mentor, and he played a vital role in moulding the LTTE chief's thinking during the movement's formative years between 1972 and 1975. A. Rajaratnam died in 1975 when Kalaivani was 7; he was in Chennai, and his body was airlifted to Jaffna, where his funeral was held. Marital status of Kalaivani at the time of her death, is not known to the general public. Kalaivani was survived by her mother, brother Sivavarman and two sisters, Anuja and Vasugi, the former died in a skirmish with the Indian army in Weli Oya in late 1991 and the latter moved to France.
Kalaivani is related to Sivarasan and Subha, two co-conspirators of the plot. Sivarasan's mother, Sivapackiyam was the sister of Kalaivani's father whereas Subha's parents are related to Sivarasan's father. Another assumed reason as to why they were selected to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi was due to the genetics of the Rajaratnam-Pillai clan, of which many exhibited drastically different front and side profiles.
The court convicted and sentenced the seven persons who facilitated the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi to life imprisonment. On November 11, 2022, the Supreme Court of India ordered the release of six convicts in the 1991 Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, after the Tamil Nadu government controversially recommended their remission in March 2016, the convicts are:
- V. Sriharan alias Murugan – A LTTE operative from Sri Lanka
- S. Nalini Sriharan – Wife of V. Sriharan. Nalini is a citizen of India.
- T. Suthendraraja alias Santhan – A Sri Lankan national.
- Robert Pious – A Sri Lankan national.
- Jayakumar – The brother-in-law of Robert Pious.
- Ravichandran – A Sri Lankan national.
- A. G. Perarivalan – An Indian citizen who was arrested for supplying a 9-volt battery for the explosive device.
| Name | Act in plot | Birthdate | Birthplace | Cause of death |
| Chandrasekharam Pillai Packiyachandram alias Sivarasan alias Raghuvaran | Planning and executing the plot of the assassination | 1958 | Udupiddy | Suicide |
| Malligai Pillai alias Subha or Nithya | Standby to accompany the human bomb she was also the backup bomber | 1964 | Kupukullai | Suicide |
| Kalaivani Rajaratnam alias Dhanu alias Anbu | The human bomb | 26 July 1968 | Kaithady Nunavil | Suicide |