SC SEEKS REPORT ON RAJIV GANDHI ‘HUMAN BOMB’ CONSPIRACY

NEWDELHI: Twenty-six years after Rajiv Gandhi was killed in 1991, the Supreme Court asked the Centre on Thursday to give a report of its investigation into the conspiracy behind making and supplying of the human bomb.

The former prime minister was killed on May 21, 1991, when a woman suicide bomber with deadly explosives strapped around her body in a belt triggered the bomb.

A bench headed by justice Ranjan Gogoi sought to know the progress of probe done by the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) that was entrusted with the task to probe the assassination. It adjourned the hearing to next Wednesday.

“We want Solicitor General or an Additional Solicitor General to tell us about the status of investigation on this point. What has been the result of such re-investigation or further investigation?” the court told advocate PK Dey, who appeared for MDMA.

The bench is seized of a petition filed by a convict undergoing life sentence for supplying batteries reportedly used in the bomb. Petitioner’s lawyer Gopal Sankarnarayan said MDMA has not yet made public its probe into how the bomb was made, who made it and how it was supplied.

Questioning his client’s conviction on this ground, the counsel said the report on the conspiracy would prove the petitioner’s innocence. MDMA was constituted on December 2, 1998. The agency was assigned the task to monitor, coordinate, investigate and follow up issues arising out of the Memorandum of Action Taken (MoAT).