Rajiv Gandhi killing: Kin of deceased say release of convicts ‘unacceptable’
Hindustan TimesOver three decades ago, on the fateful night of 21 May 1991 when a suicide bomber carried out the assassination of the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi while killing 16 others in Tamil Nadu, S Abbas was oblivious that the casualties involved his mother also. S Abbas’s mother was killed in the attack carried out to assassinate the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi “I received my mother’s remains wrapped in a bedsheet. “Nalini’s daughter is a doctor in London and I had to drop out after I passed Class 10 because I had to earn,” says Abbas. Tamil Nadu’s political parties except the Congress and BJP had welcomed the release of the convicts as a “victory for human rights”. Abbas had also filed a petition in the Supreme Court when late former J Jayalalithaa had sought the release of all the seven life convicts after the civil war in Sri Lanka ended in 2009.