New Delhi:
Nalini Sriharan, a life convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, has been released on one month parole from the Vellore central prison. This is the first time when she has granted 30-day parole in her 28-year-long incarceration. She was granted parole after she argued in person that she needed the time to make arrangements for her daughter's wedding.
This is for the first time when she has been granted ordinary parole, Nalini was granted emergency parole for 12-hours in 2016 after her father’s death.
Nalini, India’s longest-serving woman prisoner, will have to surrender before jail authorities at 5 pm on the next day after the end of the period.
Lodged in the Special Prison for Women in Vellore for the last 28 years, Nalini had earlier sought six months' leave to make arrangements for the marriage of her daughter.
She is the second convict in the high-profile case to get ordinary leave. Earlier in August, 2017, the state government had granted one month parole to Perarivalan and later extended it by another one month in view of his ailing father's condition.
Perarivalan, Nalini, her husband Murugan, a Sri Lankan national, and four others are serving life imprisonment in the case related to the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi by an LTTE suicide bomber during an election rally at Sriperumpudur near here on May 21, 1991.
A division bench of justices M M Sundaresh and M Nirmal Kumar also allowed her request that the state bear the cost of her escort during the leave period, saying that she and her husband were in jail for decades and had no means to pay for it.
