Nalini Sriharan, one of the seven convicts in the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, has gone on a hunger strike inside the Vellore Women's Prison, demanding her release. Nalini said she, along with her husband Murugan, had been in jail for the last 28 years.
Nalini, Murugan and five others are serving life imprisonment in the case related to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) suicide bomber during an election rally at Sriperumpudur near Chennai on May 21, 1991.
Nalini was initially sentenced to death for her involvement in the case. However, her death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the Tamil Nadu government on April 24, 2000.
She had earlier claimed that after commutation of her death sentence, around 3,700 life convicts, who had served 10 years of imprisonment and less, were released by the Tamil Nadu government.
Nalini, who is arguably India’s longest-serving woman prisoner, said she had given multiple petitions to the state government seeking an early release.
On July 25, she was released on a 30-day parole amid tight security for her daughter's wedding. Imprisoned since 1991, this was the first time she had been out on parole for 30 days.
She had been out on parole earlier too, but not for a period that extends to a month. In 2016, she was granted a 12-hour parole to attend the funeral of her father.
