New Delhi: The 20-year-old daughter of
Nalini and Murugan, who were convicted in Rajiv Gandhi
assassination case, wants to come to India and campaign for
clemency for her father who is on death row.
A student of biomedicine in a Glasgow University,
Harithra says she discussed the case with her parents at the
age of 14, when she first met them, and has read the case
files.
"They wanted me to believe that they are innocent. I
do believe now from what he (Murugan) told me and after I read
the case files," she said from London.
"I could see it from the confessional statement.... It
was a lie they made up, a lie both of them spoke, both of them
decided. I am not talking like a daughter but someone who
reads them will say so," she said.
Harithra in her first meeting with her parents had
asked them many questions related to the killing, she said,
adding, "I was angry and disappointed and needed answers".
She said Murgan replied that my mother knew that she
was pregnant at the time of the incident.
"You think any human having a one-month-old unborn
baby would go to the do such an act -- a bomb explosion,"
Harirthra recalled Murugan`s words.
The Madras High Court recently suspended for eight
weeks the execution of Murugan, Santhan, and Perarivalan --
convicted in Rajiv Gandhi`s killing in 1991 in Sriperumbudur
in Tamil Nadu.
After almost nine years of the killing, Nalini`s death
sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on the intervention
of Congress president and Rajiv Gandhi`s wife Sonia Gandhi.
"I am interested in meeting Mrs Sonia Gandhi and
thanking her for commuting my mom`s sentence. I wish to plead
to her to consider my father`s case," she said, adding she has
applied for visa to visit India, where she was born in a
prison.
PTI
