MADRAS: The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eclam (LTTE) ordered the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi after it discovered during two secret meetings with the former Prime Minister that his perception of the Lankan Tamil problem “remained unchanged.”

This has been stated in the 49 page charge sheet laid before the Special court designated to try the assassination case.

The charge sheet discloses that in March 1991 emissaries of the LTTE had two secret meetings with Rajiv Gandhi to discuss the Tamil problem.

The names of the representatives of the Tigers are not contained in the document nor are the venue of the meeting mentioned.

It only states that the meetings took place in March 1991 within a span of 10 days.

The charge sheet says that the meetings were used as a smokescreen by the LTTE to ascertain if there was any change in the former Prime Minister’s perception of the Tamil problem. During the encounter, the Tigers’ nominees discovered that Rajiv Gandhi would certainly pursue with vigor the Indo-Sri Lanka accord if he returned to power,

The LTTE emissaries conveyed this impression to their leadership which decided to eliminate the former Prime Minister,

Another interesting detail contained in the charge sheet is that the Salem-based lorry owner, Dhansekaran, an accused now in custody, had hooked six Maruti Gypsy vehicles in October 1990 and had taken delivery of four of them till the commission of the crime. He had paid the money in full by draft from the funds given to him by the Tigers.

Although the charge sheet does not give details of the dealers through whom the vehicles were obtained, it states that the green Maruti Gypsy used by prime suspect Sivarasan in his last days while fleeing from the law was one of them,

Sivarasan had changed the color of his vehicle twice in the fast week to escape detection. In an interesting detail, the charge sheet says that human bomb assassin, Dhanu, had got the salwar and Kameez, that she was on the fateful day stitched from a tailor in Puraswalkam a busy market place in the West Madras.

Dhanu had told the tailor to make oversized garments for her, She got three such sets stitched in the first week of May.

The charge sheet before Judge S.M . Siddickk of the special court designated to try the assassination case here is a privileged document under the Terrorists and Disruptive (prevention) Act (TADA) and has been kept a secret as the trial,

Article extracted from this publication >> July 17, 1992