(COLOMBO) – Three Sri Lankans, who were convicted for the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and prematurely freed from prison, returned to the island-nation on Wednesday.
The three- Murugan (53), Robert Payas (53) and Jayakumar (62) – arrived at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) in Katunayake on Wednesday afternoon after departing Chennai.
They were among six freed in November 2022 by the Indian Supreme Court, which had said they showed “satisfactory behaviour” while in jail and also noted the Tamil Nadu Government had recommended their release.
Upon their release from jail, the three men were escorted from a special camp in Tiruchirappalli, where they had been detained, to the Chennai International Airport by a team of police officers in the morning. They had recently been granted passports by Sri Lanka to facilitate their return.
One of the six – Murugan – is married to Nalini, an Indian citizen who was among the six released in 2022 on the Supreme Court’s orders. Nalini accompanied her husband to the airport; visuals showed her sitting with him for a few moments before he was taken into the terminal.
Three decades ago, an intervention by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, the late Prime Minister’s widow, spared Nalini’s life – she, and the others, had been sentenced to death – after it emerged she had been pregnant during the sentencing. Her daughter is now a doctor in the United Kingdom.
It was unclear if the three of them would face criminal or other charges in Sri Lanka, but they were allowed to walk free on arrival into the country.
