Priyanka Gandhi asked questions on Rajiv’s assassination, says Nalini Sriharan

Priyanka Gandhi had become emotional and cried when she met Nalini Sriharan in the Vellore Central Prison over a decade ago, she told reporters here answering a question on the meeting.

Now, Priyanka Gandhi Congress party leader, she had then sought to know about the Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination of her father and Nalini said she divulged whatever she knew.

Other things that transpired in that meeting cannot be disclosed as it pertained to Priyanka’s personal views, she said. Nalini was freed on November 12 following a Supreme Court order.

On November 11, the Supreme court had released the remaining six convicts, including including Nalini and Ravichandran.

Nalini and Ravichandran had approached the apex court Court in August seeking early release. This move came after the top court granted granted bail to another convict AG Perarivalan – on May 18. At the time, the SC had evoked its extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to release Perarivalan on grounds of poor health and good conduct.

The ruling mirrored the reasoning cited by the court in Perarivalan’s release.

All seven convicts – Perarivalan, Nalini, Murugan alias Sriharan, Santhan, Ravichandran, Robert Payas and S Jayakumar – were arrested in 1991.

On Saturday, Nalini, the longest-serving woman prisoner in the country expressed gratitude to the people of Tamil Nadu for supporting her for 32 years. “I thank both, the state and Union government,” she said.