SC seeks CBI report on Rajiv’s murder plot
MDMA given 4-weeks’ time to file report
The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought a status report on the investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) headed Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) into the larger conspiracy behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Pointing out that the last status report by the MDMA was year old and at that time the agency was awaiting response to Letter Rogatories that were sent to several countries including Sri Lanka, and Thailand, a bench of Justice L. Nageswara Rao and Justice Hemant Gupta sought the status of the Letter Rogatory that were sent overseas.
The MDMA comprising the officials of Intelligence Bureau, RAW, Revenue Intelligence and other agencies are headed by the CBI. The MDMA was set up in 1998 on the recommendation of Justice M.C. Jain Commission of Inquiry which had probed the conspiracy aspect of Gandhi’s assassination.
The top court gave four weeks to MDMA to file the report.
Besides the larger conspiracy behind the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the MDMA was to investigate the origin and make of the IED that was used in the assassination.
One of the accused in Rajiv Gandhi assassination conspiracy case A.G. Perarivalan had moved the top court in 2016 seeking the suspension of his sentence contending that investigation into the origin and making of IED has yet to conclude.
Perarivalan was convicted for supplying two 9 volts batteries that were used to for the making of the IED for the assassination of the former Prime Minister on May 21, 1991, at Sriperumbudur by a human bomb Dhanu.
He has contended that one of the primary purposes of constituting the MDMA was to investigate the larger conspiracy, trace the origin and make of the IED, but even after 18 years, CBI has not been able to conclude its investigation.
Perarivalan has already spent 26 years in jail.
He was awarded death sentence which was commuted by the top court on February 18, 2014, on the grounds of the long delay in deciding his and other death row convicts mercy petition by the President.
Former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on the night of May 21, 1991 at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu by a woman suicide bomber, identified as Dhanu, at a poll rally. Gandhi's assassination was perhaps the first case of suicide bombing which had claimed the life of a high-profile leader.