S.R. Balasubramanian, former Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) president and incumbent AIADMK Rajya Sabha M.P., has said that no haste should be displayed in talking about release from prison of Perarivalan, one of the seven main accused in the 1991 assassination of former prime-minister Rajiv Gandhi.

While campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls, the then Congress president and former prime-minister Rajiv Gandhi was blown to pieces as a human bomb exploded after touching his feet. Perarivalan, who reportedly supplied batteries to detonate the bomb, was among the seven main accused in the case along with Murugan, Nalini, Robert Paes, Santhan, Jayakumar and Ravichandran.

All the seven were awarded death penalties for their involvement in the crime which shocked the entire world. The death sentence, however, was reduced to life sentence in phases. Many political parties have appealed to the Centre and the State to consider releasing all the accused who had already spent 26 years in prison. A former CBI official and a former Judge said that Congress should consider releasing them by writing to the Centre that it won’t object to their eventual release from prison.

Speaking during a recent interview, SRB said that there was not urgent need to release Perarivalan. “It is indeed painful to note politicians speaking as if the accused was not guilty of committing any crime. I never thought Congress would remain so silent amid requests from many quarters to release Perarivalan. I wonder if this was the way they were paying homage to Rajiv Gandhi,” he said.