NEW DELHI: The Verma commission probing security lapses leading to the assassination India’s former prime minister of Rajiv Gandhi directed the Indian government Tamil Nadu and Delhi Police to submit documents relevant to the inquiry by January 30. The direction was given by justice 4J.S.Verma as the documents had ot been placed before the one man commission despite earlier orders. The commission recorded evidence of Chakrapani Reddiyar treasurer of Congress (I) unit in Chengalpattu district where Rajiv Gandhi was killed in a bomb blast on May 20 last year.

Reddiyar told the commission that a meeting of Congress (I) leaders including Maragatham CChandrashekhar and Ramaswamy Naidu and some police officers was held in the house of a local businessman Dharamchand Jain to work out the venue of Rajiv Gandhi’s meeting and the place where the Congress-1 president would spend the night of May 21 after addressing the meeting. Reddiyar said he was involved in making arrangements for the meeting though he was unaware of any application moved by Maragatham Chandrashekarto the district authorities. for granting permission to hold the meeting (On the May 19 meeting of Congress (I) leaders and policemen at Dharamchand Jains residence it was decided to put up Rajiv Gandhi fat the same house though Mrs. Chandrashekhar objected to the proposal.

Responding to questions by counsels Reddiyar said he was present at the meeting on the night of May 20-21 till beyond midnight overlooking the fixing of light posts there He said no policemen was present at the spot till Maragatham arrived to oversee arrangements. On May 21 Reddiyara said he was also not checked or frisked by any policeman when he arrived at the site on the evening of the fateful day and was sitting in the VIP enclosure when the explosion occurred. He said he left the site after Gandhi’s body was removed and went to Sriperumbudur hospital to look for Maragatham.

Other views of assassination:

The killers of late Indian Premier Rajiv Gandhi received direct support from some Tamils based in Malaysia and Singapore official sources have said. Officials of tie Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the conspiracy behind the assassination had recently visited the two countries and carried out investigations there the sources said.

SIT believed that some of the Tamils in these two countries played an active role Providi the sources said providing logistic support to the LTTE militants to carry out their plan.

These Tamils were associated with the LTTE and had supplied money sophisticated weapons and other logistic support to the militant group the sources said.

The sources said the charge sheet would be filed in Madras (capital of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu) where the case had been registered. There were twenty accused person so far and of them 12 were suspected LTTE cadres The SIT had time till June this year to file its charge sheet as under the anti-Terrorist Act a years’ time was given to the prosecuting agency to file its complaint in court. They said it was unlikely that the number of arrests in the case was going to rise significantly now as work was going on to tie the loose ends in the case. However they said SIT had provided information to the Tamil Nadu police in connection with the killing of the EPRLF leader Padmanabha in June 1990.

The sources said SIT believed that the plan to kill Rajiv Gandhi was set in motion in February last year with some Tamil militant is crossing over to Madras from Northern Sri Lanka and anchoring themselves with their harbors. According to the sources the SIT believed that the belt bomb carried by Dhan the woman assassin of Rajiv Gandhi was made in northern Sri Lanka and brought to Tamil Nadu in a semi-assembled form. They felt that most of the suspected LTTE cadres arrested by SIT were experts in bomb making and could have easily assembled the device. A large part of the conspiracy to assassinate the Congress-I leader had been unearthed and SIT was now concentrating on the involvement of people based outside India and Sri Lanka.

Article extracted from this publication >> February 7, 1992