Trials of Truth

by Pinky Anand

  The group that organized the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi was the LTTE. Under the leadership of V. Prabhakaran, the LTTE came into existence in 1976. Eventually, the movement became an anti-establishment one, and the Sri Lankan government adopted stern measures to curb the organization’s activities. A series of confrontations took place between the government and the LTTE activists. In an attempt to end the civil war situation that had been created in Sri Lanka, the then PM of India Rajiv Gandhi signed an Indo-Sri Lanka Accord on 29 July 1987. The LTTE was among the signatories of this accord. As a result of this agreement, the Indian government sent the IPKF to Sri Lanka to disarm the LTTE.

  It is alleged that the IPKF committed atrocities against the Tamilians in Sri Lanka and that the Indian government did not cooperate with the LTTE. The IPKF was finally recalled in March 1990. Before the 1991 general elections, Rajiv Gandhi said in an interview that if he returned to power, he would consider resending the IPKF to Sri Lanka. This enraged the LTTE and the organization, in retaliation, planned to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi.

  The LTTE made up its mind to prevent Gandhi from regaining power, even if it required assassinating him. Realizing that he would be a near-impossible target as the prime minister, it was decided that they would strike while his security status was still that of the leader of the Opposition, as election campaigning would render him vulnerable.

  The nefarious scheme was put into action on 21 May 1991, when Rajiv Gandhi arrived at around 10 p.m. to an election meeting at the town of Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu. He was surrounded by people trying to garland him. A sub-inspector on duty, Ansuya, tried to prevent a woman called Dhanu, an undercover LTTE suicide-squad member, from getting close to Rajiv. She had almost caught hold of the assassin, but was interrupted by Gandhi, who, according to Ansuya, had wanted everybody to get a chance to meet him. Dhanu bent down, as if she wanted to touch Rajiv Gandhi’s feet. The latter, in turn, bent to lift her up. It was just at this moment that Dhanu detonated the battery-operated belt bomb strapped around her waist and concealed under her clothes. She, together with Haribabu, a photographer engaged by the LTTE to take photographs of the horrific sight, died in the blast. Rajiv Gandhi lost his life, along with fifteen people, including nine policemen. Forty-three others suffered injuries.

  A charge of conspiracy was framed under TADA, the IPC, the Arms Act, 1959, the Telegraphy Act, 1933, the Foreigners Act, 1946, the Explosive Substances Act, 1908, and the Passports Act, 1967, against a total of forty-one persons, out of which twelve were already dead, having committed suicide, and three were absconding. The remaining twenty-six faced trial before the special TADA court. S. Nalini, T. Suthendraraja (alias Santhan) and Sriharan (alias Murugan) were Accused nos. 1, 2 and 3.

  A total of twenty-five charges were framed against the accused. Under Section 15 of the TADA, confessions were recorded by the Superintendent of Police, CBI/Special Protection Group, who had been deputed in the Special Investigation Team. The special court convicted all the twenty-six accused and awarded the death penalty to all. The court referred the case to the Supreme Court for the confirmation of the death sentence for all the convicts.

  In the appeal,1 the Supreme Court confirmed the death sentences of Nalini, Santhan and Murugan. On the other hand, the death sentences of Robert Payas (alias Kumaralingam), S. Jayakumar (alias Jayakumaranand) and P. Ravichandran (alias Ravi) were altered to life imprisonment. The conviction of the other accused under Section 302 of the IPC was set aside. All the charges under Sections 3(3), 3(4) and 5 of TADA were also set aside by the Supreme Court.

  The apex court held that the act was not punishable under the TADA as there was no motive to overawe the government, and neither was Rajiv Gandhi a member of Parliament nor was he under oath to protect. A senior leader of the LTTE had personal animosity towards Rajiv Gandhi, which had led to cadres of the LTTE developing hatred towards him. This was so because Rajiv Gandhi was associated with the atrocities allegedly committed by the IPKF in Sri Lanka.

  Nalini and the other accused in the matter made a confessional statement, giving complete details of how the plan was executed and who had been involved. One of the dilemmas of the Supreme Court was how to examine these statements and to what extent they were admissible in evidence.

  The TADA was a legislation made specifically to curb terrorist activities; it was often considered draconian, sometimes bypassing the controls and checks that are part of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, and overriding it. In the matter of confessions, where the latter act has mandated that the confessions made to a police officer are not admissible, the TADA mandates the admissibility of such confessions.

  When Section 15 of the TADA states that the confession of an accused, if voluntary and valid, is admissible against a co-accused, it would be taken as substantive evidence against the co-accused. When it comes to deciding the value that is to be attached to a confession, that will be determined by the appreciation of the evidence. As a matter of prudence, the court may look for some corroboration if a confession is to be used against a co-accused, though that will again be within the sphere of appraisal of the evidence.

  It was contended before the Supreme Court that the killing of Rajiv Gandhi was not a terrorist act and hence not punishable under Section 3 of the TADA. The court accepted this contention as there was no intention seen to overthrow the government or perform a terrorist activity. The court held that even though the TADA was not applicable to the matter at hand, the confessions would still hold merit as the trial had taken place under the same. The Supreme Court held:

  The aforesaid implications of Section 12 vis-à-vis Section 15 of the TADA have not been adverted to in Bilal Ahmed’s case. Hence, the observations therein that ‘while dealing with the offences of which the appellant was convicted there is no question of looking into the confessional statement attributed to him, much less relying on it, since he was acquitted of the offences under TADA’ cannot be followed by us. The correct position is that the confessional statement duly recorded under Section 15 of the TADA would continue to remain admissible as for the other offences under any other law which too were tried along with TADA offences, no matter that the accused was acquitted of offences under TADA in that trial.

  The court analysed the merit of the matter divorced from the public prejudice and held that the TADA would not apply in the case. The governing law was held to the IPC and the court convicted the persons accused for offences under the IPC as against the TADA.

  The court observed:

  Though we have held that [the] object of the conspiracy was not to commit any terrorist act or any disruptive activity, nevertheless the murder of a former Prime Minister for what he did in the interest of the country was an act of exceptional depravity on the part of the accused, an unparalleled act in the annals of crimes committed in this country. In a mindless fashion not only that Rajiv Gandhi was killed along with him others died and many suffered grievous and simple injuries.

  The objectivity with which the Supreme Court delivered the judgment in a high-stakes case shows how deeply the rule of law and constitutional values are embedded in India. The fact that it was an Indian prime minister that had been assassinated did not impact or take away from the rigour of the rule of law and deciding the governing law.

  Recent Controversy

  In 2000, Nalini’s death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment by the governor of Tamil Nadu on the basis of a recommendation by the state cabinet and a public appeal by Sonia Gandhi, the widow of Rajiv Gandhi.

  The three death-penalty convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case also filed a petition in the Supreme Court.2 The court, while reiterating the principles laid down in Shatrughan Chauhan’s case, held that delay makes the process of execution of the death sentence unfair, unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious and thereby violates procedural due process guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court held in this landmark case, ‘Like the death sentence is passed lawfully, the execut
ion of the sentence must also be in consonance with the constitutional mandate and not in violation of the constitutional principles.’ A dehumanizing effect on the victims is presumed in such cases, regardless of the actual suffering that the delay caused. Considering the fact that long delays in cases of capital punishment mentally torture the accused, as they alternate between hope and despair, the death sentences of the three convicts were commuted to rigorous imprisonment for the remainder of their lives, subject to any remission granted by the appropriate government.

  The controversy did not end there. The then Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalitha’s government wrote a letter to the Central government in 2014, making a recommendation to release all seven convicts in the case. There was a threat of the state government going ahead with the release, irrespective of the Central government’s views. The Central government approached the Supreme Court contending that under the CrPC, only the Central government was empowered to commute the sentence and release the convicts.3 The matter was referred to a constitutional bench of the Supreme Court.

  The bench held4 that it is mandatory for the state government to consult the Central government. Moreover, the opinion of the Central government would be given primacy over the opinion of the state government. The decision to grant remission must be well informed, reasonable and fair, and the opinion of the presiding judge of the court before which the conviction was confirmed must be sought. The court also stated that a special category of sentence instead of death can be substituted by the punishment of imprisonment for life or for a term exceeding fourteen years, which can be put beyond application of remission by the court.

  Political Assassination: A Global Phenomena

  Ever since the Moabite King Eglon was stabbed to death on his throne in 1200 BCE, and probably even long before that, political leaders have been killed for any number of reasons.

  The logic of political assassinations is distinct from that of other manifestations of violence. The state is mostly a major actor in these cases. Consequently, it is not surprising that Opposition leaders are more likely to be targeted in authoritarian systems or in weak democracies where the political environment provides space for the emergence of opposition.

  The former chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party, Benazir Bhutto, was Pakistan’s first and, till date, only female prime minister. She was the eldest child of the former prime minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. On 27 December 2007, Bhutto was killed while leaving a campaign rally for her party at Liaqat National Bagh in the city of Rawalpindi. After entering her white Toyota Land Cruiser, a bulletproof vehicle, Bhutto stood up through its sunroof to wave to the crowds. At this point, a gunman fired shots at her. This was followed by the detonation of explosives near the vehicle, which killed approximately twenty people. Bhutto was critically wounded and rushed to hospital, where she was declared dead.

  John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, served from 1961 until his death in 1963. Winning by a narrow margin in the popular vote, Kennedy became the first Roman Catholic President. On 22 November 1963, when he was hardly past his first thousand days in office, Kennedy was killed by an assassin’s bullets as his motorcade wound through Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was the youngest man elected President and also the youngest to die.

  Martin Luther King, an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the African-American civil rights movement is a national icon in the history of modern American liberalism. On 4 April 1968, a shot rang out as King stood on the motel’s second-floor balcony. The bullet entered through his right cheek, smashing his jaw, then travelled down his spinal cord before lodging in his shoulder. After emergency chest surgery, King was pronounced dead. King’s autopsy revealed that though only thirty-nine years old, he had the heart of a sixty-year-old man, perhaps a result of the stress of thirteen years in the civil rights movement. The assassination led to a nationwide wave of riots in more than a hundred cities.

  Abraham Lincoln, nicknamed Honest Abe, was the sixteenth President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln took place on Good Friday, 14 April 1865, as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination occurred five days after the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee, surrendered to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army of the Potomac. Lincoln was the first American President to be assassinated, though an unsuccessful attempt had been made on Andrew Jackson thirty years earlier in 1835.

  Thomas D’Arcy McGee, an Irish nationalist, Catholic spokesman, journalist and the father of the Canadian Confederation, also met with the same fate. On 7 April 1868, McGee participated in a parliamentary debate that went on past midnight. Then he went home and, while waiting for his landlady to open the door, he was purportedly assassinated by Patrick J. Whelan. Whelan, a Fenian sympathizer and a Catholic, was accused, tried, convicted and hanged for the crime.

  Looking at such political assassinations, the question arises: Why are political changes prompted by killing specific individuals and not by other means? There are varied opinions in this regard. The offenders may believe that such an assassination is the fastest way to promote their interests. Another reason can be that other alternatives are not viable, forcing the perpetrators to consider assassination. It may even be the case that the political assassination is only a stage in the scheme devised by the offender to fulfil an agenda. Whatever the precise reason may be, the offender does see a causal relationship between the assassination and advancement or the prevention of certain policies. What cannot be discounted is that the impact of such assassinations is enormous. They shake the very foundation of a country, causing a decline in the democratic nature of a state and increasing instability.

  The world today is highly volatile. The TV and the media constantly remind us of this upheaval that our society is undergoing. The rise of power blocs in today’s world is becoming more dangerous than before. The world is changing at breakneck speed, and however much we try and contain this, the chaos that we are entering into is undeniable. In these times we look towards our leaders and our chosen elected representatives to show us the way and give us direction. I strongly believe we need stronger governments than ever before to protect us and our leaders from becoming victims.

  11

  THE TANDOOR MURDER CASE

  What began as a regular night on 2 July 1995 for constable Abdul Nazir Kunju and home guard Chanderpal of the Delhi police turned into one of the most enduring cases in the Indian criminal justice system. The two were patrolling the area of Ashoka Road Western Court in Delhi, when they encountered a panicked woman screaming at the top of her lungs that the Bagiya restaurant in Hotel Ashok Yatri Niwas had been set on fire.

  Expecting a fire, they rushed to the spot near the Janpath Lane where the hotel is situated and scaled the wall to enter the premises. The scene that awaited them would spark nightmares across the nation. Unfortunately, this did not seem to be a regular fire. Something was burning in the eatery’s tandoor (a type of clay oven).

  Tending to the fire was the manager Keshav Kumar and Sushil Sharma, co-owner of the place; they were seen placing wooden logs and small pieces of firewood into the burning fire, stoking it. On being asked what was burning, the manager claimed he was a Congress worker burning old banners and posters, but the two policemen smelled a foul odour and detained the two.

  What awaited them when they doused the fire was something they would never have expected on that balmy July night. The tandoor was stuffed with partially burnt human remains, a torso and burnt bones. A black polythene sheet nearby bore traces of blood.

  The body was eventually revealed to be that of twenty-nine-year-old Naina Sahni, the wife of the co-owner, the one stoking the fire in the tandoor. She had been brutally slaughtered by her better half, the then Delhi Youth Congress president Sushil Sharma.

  The police quickly apprehended Kumar, but Sharma mana
ged to escape them. In view of the disclosure statement made by Kumar, the police started investigating and raided Sharma’s apartment in Gole Market. They found blood as well as a bullet mark embedded in the plywood and shell casings. A diary was also recovered in which was written: ‘Naina Sahni loves Sushil Sharma’. The blood, bullets and the diary seemed to point towards a love story gone very wrong.

  As indicated by the charge sheet put together by the police, Sharma and Sahni had begun to live together, which had led to a secret wedding. However, all was not right and Sharma started believing that his new bride was having an illicit affair with her schoolmate and close colleague in the Congress party, Matloob Karim. The suspicion prompted considerable discord, and, the police said there was abusive behaviour on the part of Sharma at home. Keeping the marriage a secret was also putting a strain on the newly-weds. This was on Sharma’s insistence, as he believed news of his marriage would negatively impact his political career.

  The chain of circumstances which led to Sahni’s death began on 2 July, when Sharma reached his home at Mandir Marg in the heart of the capital. He found Sahni chatting on the phone and consuming alcohol. Upon seeing him, she immediately put down the phone. Sharma redialled the number to find out whom she was talking to. His worst fears were confirmed when Karim answered at the other end. Enraged, Sharma shot Sahni using a .32-bore revolver. One shot went through her head, another hit her in the neck, while the third missed her and hit an aeration-and-cooling system.

  Sahni died on the spot. What happened next makes one’s stomach churn. Sharma wrapped the body and took it to Bagiya Restaurant, where he hacked his wife’s body into pieces and, thereafter, with the help of Kumar, attempted to burn the body in the tandoor to get rid of any evidence. During the investigation, when Sahni’s body was shown to her parents, they were so distraught that they could only cry and were unable to identify the body. The body was finally identified by the same Matloob Karim, who had been accused of having an affair with the victim. The post-mortem examination revealed that the burn injuries were posthumous in nature.