Rajiv case convicts seek visa for girl

Murugan, Nalini on indefinite fast, want daughter to come and study in India

Murugan and Nalini, the couple convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, have been on an ‘indefinite’ fast at the high-security Vellore prison, 170 km from here, demanding that their teenaged daughter, Arithra, now living with her grandmother in Sri Lanka, be granted a student visa to pursue studies in India.

Born in a prison in Poonamalee in suburban Chennai in 1991, while her parents were facing trial for conspiring to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi, 15-year-old Arithra has been living with her paternal grandmother in Sri Lanka. After passing her Class X, apparently with very good marks, she has now sought a student visa at the Indian High Commission in Colombo, to pursue further studies in the country of her birth. But her request was turned down, prompting her parents to go on an indefinite fast in the Vellore prison from June 14.

Arithra had visited her parents in January this year after the Indian Embassy in Sri Lanka finally granted her visa. On that occasion too, her request for visa had initially been turned down. Murugan had undertaken a fast-until-death from December 15, 2005 to pressure Indian officials to allow his daughter to come to India. Arithra finally got the green signal and visited her parents in January.

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R Elangovan, counsel for Nalini, told The Indian Express, that Murugan and Nalini were apprehensive about their daughter’s safety, living as she was near Trincomalee, the eastern Sri Lankan port town now caught in the thick of ethnic violence. ‘‘They want her in India because it is safer for her here,’’ he said, adding that the family was likely to receive some good news regarding her visa in a day or two.

While Murugan has been sentenced to death, Nalini is serving life-term in Vellore prison after the President commuted her death sentence. The two were in love and got married secretly even as a massive hunt was on for them soon after the gruesome assassination. They got married even as they were on the run. The two have been preparing for post-graduate qualifications in computer applications from prison through correspondence with the Indira Gandhi Open University.

Murugan’s mercy petition is pending with the President. The Supreme Court had confirmed death sentences for Murugan, Nalini, Santhan and Perarivalan, and life terms to Jayakumar, Robert Pius and Ravichandran in the case.

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