Sonia pleads for Nalini’s life
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Nov 18 — The Congress President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, favours that the life of Nalini, who has been sentenced to death in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, be spared.

Mrs Sonia Gandhi conveyed her feelings to the President, Mr K.R. Narayanan, at a meeting, the Congress spokesman, Mr Ajit Jogi, said here today.

The party’s confirmation came in the wake of a statement by former Chairperson of the National Commission for Women, Mrs Mohini Giri to this effect.

In a press note, the Congress said Mrs Sonia Gandhi communicated her feelings and those of her son and daughter on the issue.

"Mrs Sonia Gandhi, Congress President, during a private meeting with the President had conveyed to him her as well as her son and daughter's feelings that the life of Nalini, one of the convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, be spared as she is the mother of a small child’’, the note said.

The Congress President disclosed this to Mrs Mohini Giri when the latter called on her to ascertain her views regarding a mercy petition being filed by the Guild of Service, an NGO run by Mrs Giri.

Nalini is among the four who have been convicted and sentenced to death in the Rajiv Gandhi murder case.

Nalini has an eight-year-old daughter who was born during the trial. She is married to Murugan who along with Nalini, Peiarivalan and Santhan has been sentenced to death.

Earlier, the Guild of Service, claimed that the Congress President had expressed the view that no child should suffer or be orphaned by an act of the state. Mrs Giri said Mrs Sonia Gandhi had taken an enlightened approach to the issue.

Mrs Giri told newspersons here that she had appealed to the President of India to commute the death sentence of Nalini. "I appeal on behalf of humanitarian principles to the President of India, the Tamil Nadu Governor and the central and the state governments to exercise the executive powers of mercy to do so. Justice must be meted out. So, we are not asking for full pardon. We only want that death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment."

Mrs Giri said death penalty vitiated society and destroyed all possibilities of reform. She said Nalini and her husband, Murugan had eight-year-old daughter who was born in prison. She said if the execution was carried out, the state would doubly orphan the child at one stroke.

She said the flimsy material against Nalini, her circumstances, the brutalities she had alleged and above all, the fact that she was the mother of a little girl were factors which rendered her execution completely insupportable.