Rajiv Gandhi assassin’s mother meets supreme court judge Krishna Iyer

KOCHI: The mother of Perarivalan, one of the three convicts sentenced to death in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, on Thursday met former Supreme Court judge VR Krishna Iyer, seeking his intervention to save his life.

Arputham Ammal, accompanied by some relatives and her counsel met Iyer for a few minutes at his residence here. After the meeting, she told reporters that Perarivalan, her only son was 19 years old when the incident took place and has been behind bars for over 20 years.

Besides Perarivalan, Santhan and Murugan are also facing the gallows for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu. On the occasion, Iyer launched a week long awareness drive against capital punishment taken up by a group of Tamil Nadu-based NGOs, whose representatives also accompanied Arputham Ammal.

Iyer said “if any human life is judicially hanged for a hateful crime, the flag of humanity hangs low in the name of compassion and respect for the divinity that sustains universality. It is noteworthy that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has declared against death sentence”.