Nalini Sriharan on hunger strike demanding shifting to Chennai jail

Chennai: Nalini Sriharan, one of the convicts in the assassination case of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, has started a hunger strike in Vellore prison demanding that she be shifted to a jail here.

According to reports reaching here, Nalini had sought to be shifted to a jail here so that she could oversee the work relating to her daughter Harithra`s wedding.

Harithra is living in the UK and plans to visit Chennai for her wedding.

Nalini`s application for parole was rejected by the prison authorities.

She began her hunger protest on Thursday. The jail officials were not available for comments.

Nalini was sentenced to death by a special court for her involvement in Gandhi`s assassination at Sriperumbudur near Chennai on May 21, 1991.

The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after Sonia Gandhi, the former Prime Minister`s widow, petitioned for clemency -- for the sake of Nalini`s daughter.

Nalini, an Indian, had accompanied the Sri Lankan woman suicide bomber who blew up Rajiv Gandhi with concealed explosives.

Nalini, who was a close friend of an LTTE operative known as Murugan, another accused in the case, later gave birth to the girl in prison.