Where Will Rajiv’s Assassins Go?

Will any country give residency to the Lankans who were part of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, if they’re freed?

WrittenBy:Sarah Hafeez
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The Supreme Court on February 27, 2014 stayed the release of four prisoners serving life terms for their role in Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991.With this order, the court has stopped the release of all seven convicts in the case.The Tamil Nadu government decided to release all seven a day after the Supreme Court commuted the death sentence of three of the prisoners – Murugan, Perarivalan and Santham -to life terms on February 18, 2014.

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The Centre challenged the Tamil Nadu Government’s decision in the Supreme Court to release the prisoners. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s move an “attack on the soul of India”.

Taking up the Centre’s petition, the court stayed the release of the three prisoners who were on death row.Now, in its latest pronouncement, the court has said it would decide whether the Centre or the Tamil Nadu government has the right to free all the convicts.Whatever the outcome of the case, a primary question which remains unanswered is the fate of five of the seven prisoners – Ravichandran, Robert Payas, Murugan, Santhan and Jayakumar –  who are Sri Lankan nationals. If and when they are released from prison, where will they go?

The five prisoners are not Indian citizens. They are, therefore, subject to the Foreigners Act, 1946. The Act specifies that “The Central Government may by order make provision…with respect to any particular foreigner…for prohibiting, regulating or restricting the entry of foreigners into 1[India] or their departure therefrom or their presence or continued presence therein” including “requiring him to reside in a particular place” and “imposing any restrictions on his movements”.

Therefore, the fate of the five prisoners is to a large extent in the hands of the Centre, says an official at the Chief Immigration Office, Chennai on condition of anonymity.If the Centre does decide to let the prisoners stay back in India, they will have to live as refugees in one of the nearly 132 refugee camps registered under the Rehabilitation Department of the Tamil Nadu government.There is a high probability that the prisoners will be housed in “special camps” once they are released – if they choose to or are forced to stay back in India.

Special Camps are what the Tamil Nadu Department of Rehabilitation terms as “sub-jails” or the administrative detention camps where suspected Sri Lankan militants are housed. Here, refugees do not have the right to freedom of movement and privacy because they are under constant state-administered surveillance.

Two of the prisoners, Nalini and Murugan, the husband and wife who gave birth to their daughter Harithra in prison after the assassination, have expressed their wish to settle down in London where Harithra lives. But it might be difficult for the two to get a passport from the Sri Lankan Embassy in India, since Sri Lanka sees those with former ties with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as enemies of the state.

Nalini and Murugan would also have to get a visa from the United Kingdom. Given the complex nature of international protocol and diplomatic compulsions, getting a visa from the UK for the two prisoners known to be former members (or associates) of a banned terrorist organisation might turn out to be a tricky affair.

Political analyst V Suryanarayan, former Senior Professor, Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies – University of Madras, who gave me an interview said, “Returning to Sri Lanka does not look like a good prospect for the five convicts either, because in all probability the five former LTTE fighters will be imprisoned by Sri Lankan authorities once they go back to their country”.

This is primarily in response to the 2014 United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees draft report presented by Navi Pillai criticising the government’s failure to investigate allegations against the Sri Lankan state that “would amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity”.  The Sri Lankan government has claimed that an “international network of the LTTE still remains active” which is a serious threat to the nation.

Considering the number of Sri Lankan refugees in India (there were approximately 80,000 or more refugees in India at the end of the Eelam war according to the 2009 UNHCR report), conditions on the ground in Northern Sri Lanka do not seem conducive for a safe return.Moreover, Sri Lankan President, Rajapaksha last month refused to allow an international investigation into charges of war crimes levelled by the United Nations and Indian Tamils against the Sri Lankan armed forces. A move that smacked of the smug impunity and power the Sinhalese majority state enjoys over its Tamil minority.

Suryanaryanan also said, “It would, therefore, be politically suicidal for Jayalalithaa to send the prisoners back to Sri Lanka against their will because pro-Eelam sentiments are violently strong in the state and General Elections are due in a few months from now. Jayalalithha knows what she has to do to stay in the game.”

The UNHCR, however, will ensure the convicts’ asylum in a state other than India and Sri Lanka, feels Suryanarayan.

Meanwhile, the tussle between the international community and Rajapaksa over human rights violations committed during the last leg of the Eelam war in 2009 rages on. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on March 3, 2014 met Rajapaksha on the sidelines of the opening of the 3rd BIMSTEC summit in Myanmar and asked for a move to demilitarise the Jaffna peninsula. On the same day, a five-nation coalition comprising United States of America, Britain, Montenegro, Macedonia and Mauritius moved a resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council decrying the alleged human rights violations perpetrated by the island nation during its war against the LTTE.

Although the Eelam war might have physically ceased to be, in truth, it is far from over.  And the lives of the seven convicts who have been in prison in Chennai for the past 23 years are clearly mere cogs in the larger scheme of things.

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