MADRAS: Rajiv Gandhi, Congress-I president and former Prime Minister was killed in a bomb explosion at an election meeting 25 miles from here at 10 p.m. May 21.
Twelve others including two police officials believed to be a superintendent of police and an inspector were killed along with Gandhi in a powerful bomb explosion minutes after he got down from his car at the venue.
Gandhi (46) was making his way to the dais through a thick crowd jostling with party men and admirers when a powerful blast shook the earth.
Barely 30 yards away a PTI correspondent saw Gandhi’s body lying on the ground with his head smashed.
The identity of the killers has not been established but the police are combing the town for suspected militants. The Tamil Nadu police department has launched a full scale investigation.
(Unconfirmed reports said the remainder of the national election had been postponed by three weeks. Similar reports put the death toll at 85 and that the remote controlled bomb was hidden in a flower bouquet on the dias, There are confirmed reports of rioting in Delhi, Agra some Bengal and Tamil Nadu towns but whether these are aimed at any community is not known. In Delhi the house of Ram Bilas Paswan, a minister in the VP Singh Govt was set ablaze.)
Mrs Margatham Chandra Shekhar, Congress-I candidate in the constituency and Mrs Jayanthi Natarajan, Congress-I member of the dissolved Lok Sabha, are among the injured.
It took several minutes for policemen to pull out Gandhi’s body from the pile of bodies. The air was filled with smoke and the stench of burnt flesh. The crater of the blast was said to be 10 feet deep and as much across.
Gandhi’s body was taken to the government general hospital in Madras and then flown to Delhi.
Gandhi took over as prime minister in 1984, hours after his mother, Mrs Indira Gandhi, was assassinated.
An airlines pilot, he had been drawn into politics by his mother in 1980 after the death in an air crash of his younger brother, Sanjay, whom she had been grooming as her political heir, Gandhi won the general elections held within two months of Mrs Gandhi’s assassination and continued as premier until 1989 when the National Front humbled Congress-I in a campaign that projected the Bofors and other corruption-related charges against him,
His tenure as premier was marked by the dubious Punjab and Assam accords of 1985, and the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord.
Born on August 20,1944, he studied at Trinity college, England, and did a course in mechanical engineering. His greatest passion was flying. He obtained a commercial pilot’s license on return from England and joined the Indian Airlines,
He married Sonia Maino, an Italian student he met in Cambridge, in 1968. Rahul is their son and Privanka daughter.
He has represented Amethi (Uttar Prades) in the Lok Sabha since 1980 and contested the same seat in the poll held on Monday.
Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka, who often accompanied Rajiv on election tours, were not with him,
A large number of people including Congress-I workers started assembling at Rajiv Gandhi’s residence in New Delhi shortly before midnight.
Sonia was seen enquiring about her husband and was not informed of the death of Mr Gandhi immediately pending direct confirmation from authorities in Madras.
The gathering at the residence grew angry once the news was confirmed, and prevented President Venkataraman and his wife from entering the gate.
The presidential car, subjected to pounding by the angry crowds, drove back to the Rashtrapati Bhawan. The crowd also beat up media persons and broke cameras for lens men,
Sonia Gandhi later left for Madras by a special aircraft.
The government has declared State mourning Wednesday. Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar has cancelled his election program in Orissa had is returning to the capital.
The killing of Gandhi leaves Congress-I without a leader at a critical juncture when the general elections are half-way through. Senior party leaders are in an emergency session to find a successor who will carry on the campaign. The second and third phases of the Lok Sabha poll are set for Thursday and Sunday to be followed by poll in Assam and Punjab next month,
President Venkataraman has reviewed with T N Seshan, chief election commissioner, the poll “situation and the country’s security environment.
Gandhi’s change in style of campaigning may have cost him his life.
He normally stuck to the security routine and kept a safe distance from the crowds but in the current election campaign he switched over to minimum security and began mingling with the crowds.
After he got out of his car at the Sriperumbudur meeting venue, he went toward the people gathered, collected garlands, exchanged pleasantries, greeted the crowd and mixed with them freely.
MADURAI: Buses in this southern Indian city were stoned after news of the death spread.
Officials have terminated several bus services bound for Madras and other places,
Police patrolling has been intensified and armed policemen have been posted at all important places.
Police in rural areas too have been alerted.
Police and para-military forces throughout the country have been put on full alert.
Cabinet secretary Neresh Chandra held a meeting Tuesday night with chiefs of security agencies.
The Delhi police have been put on extreme alert. Patrolling of the capital has been intensified particularly in the sensitive areas.
Buses in Madurai city were stoned Tuesday night. Officials in that city in Tamil Nadu there upon terminated services bound for Madras and other places and sent to sheds the buses parked in stands for early morning trips.
Tamil Nadu governor Bhishma Narain Singh said in Madras that the state administration would leave no stone unturned to bring to book those who perpetrated teh dastardly assassination. He appealed to the people of the ate to maintain peace.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 24, 1991
