Chennai: One of the convicts in the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination case, S. Nalini, was released from Tamil Nadu's Vellore jail on one month parole on Thursday.
This is the first time she has been granted a 30-day long parole during her 28-year long incarceration, barring a day's parole that was granted last year to make funeral arrangements after the death of her father.
Nalini is India’s longest-serving woman prisoner. The Madras High Court on July 5 had granted a one month parole to Nalini on her plea for a six month parole to make arrangements for her daughter's wedding.
Nalini argued her case in person. In her petition seeking the parole, Nalini had said that she and her husband Murugan had not spent time with their daughter Harithra since she was born. She was born in prison and later raised by her grandparents and relatives in London. Nalini said in the petition that she has not done anything for her daughter since her birth and wanted to make arrangements for the wedding.
The court had stipulated that Nalini should not meet politicians and media.
In her plea, Nalini said every life convict was entitled to one month of ordinary leave after completing two years in prison and she had not taken the leave even once during the past 28 years she had spent in jail.
Nalini will spend all the 30 days with her family in a house hired for the wedding at Sathuvacheri near Vellore. Around 140km away from Chennai, she will spend the time at a rented house with her mother Padmavati, brother Pakianathan, sister Kalyani and her 26-year old daughter Harithra.
Besides Nalini, the six other convicted in the case are her husband V. Sriharan alias Murugan, A.G. Perarivalan, T. Suthendraraja alias Santhan, Jayakumar, Robert Payas and Ravichandran.
All the seven convicts have been in prison since 1991 after a female Tamil Tiger suicide bomber blew herself up while meeting Gandhi at an election rally near Chennai.
(With inputs from IANS.)
