TN govt against death penalty of Rajiv Gandhi assassins?

When Tamil Nadu government backtracked on its decision to reduce the death penalty of Rajiv Gandhi assassins in its affidavit field in the Madras High court, it came like a shock.

The government had simply said that it did not have any opposition regarding the hanging of Rajiv Gandhi assassins, who has filed writ petitions in the Madras high court to commute the death penalty keeping in mind the long delay in execution.

''We have brought a resolution in the assembly asking the President of India to commute the death sentence of the three as per the feelings of the people and political parties. So we did not oppose commuting the Death sentence. In the earlier Affidavit, we have only said that we as a state don’t have any other right to intervene in the matter,” Navaneetha Krishnan, Advocate General of Tamil Nadu told the court.

Seeman, leader of the Naam Thamaizhar party which is in the forefront of the movement to reduce the death penalty to the three persons, told TSI, “In the second Affidavit, Tamil Nadu government has clearly stated its stand against the death row. We have to praise the government for clearing the stand. Now our battle is in the courts”.

In August, following the dismissal of the mercy plea of the three death convicts by the President, the state prison department took measures to hang them. But the convicts have filed writ petitions in the Madras High court and have got a interim stay.