Chennai: S Nalini, one of the seven life convicts in the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, has threatened to end her life in the high security Special Prison for Women in Vellore on Monday night, even as her counsel decided to move the court seeking to shift her to Puzhal prison citing her safety.
Confirming this, her counsel P Pugazhendhi said that following a complaint from her fellow life convict, who was posted as orderly for Nalini, the Jailor went to the cell to enquire into it, when the incident took place.
The orderly has lodged a complaint about Nalini with the jailor who, after the 6 pm lock up time, went to her cell at around 8.30 pm to enquire into it.
At that time there seems to be some misunderstanding between Nalini and the Jailor when she tried to end her life by tying her saree around her neck. However, it was thwarted by the jail authorities, Pugazhendi said.
“This is the jail version. I don’t think so that Nalini, who had been in prison for 29 years with good conduct, would have made such an attempt over a trivial issue like this. We cannot believe it as there may be some other reason”, he said.
Stating that Vellore prison was not safe for her, Pugazhendi said steps would be taken to shift her to Puzhal prison here. “We be filing a petition in the Madras High Court tomorrow seeking to shift her from Vellore to Puzhal prison considering her safety”, he said.
It may be recalled that several political parties in the State had been demanding the early release of all the seven convicts–Nalini, her husband V Sriharan alias Murugan, A G Perarivalan, T Suthendraraja alais Santhan, Jayakumar, Robert Payas, Ravichandran–based on the resolution of the State Cabinet.
When the issue was raised by the Opposition DMK during the Assembly session in March this year, Law Minister C Ve Shanmugam said the State Cabinet had adopted a resolution on 9 September, 2018 recommending their release to Governor Banwarilal Purohit under Article 161 of the Constitution.
Since no decision was taken by the Raj Bhavan, a reminder was sent to the Governor’s Secretariat, which in its reply to the government, said the Governor would take a final decision (on the Cabinet resolution) based on the report to be submitted in the Supreme Court by the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA), comprising several investigating agencies, including the CBI, which was still probing the case.