MT Santhan, a convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, who was released in November 2022 after a Supreme Court verdict, has written a letter seeking release from the special camp he has been lodged in. In the letter dated May 30, 2023, Santhan said that the jail was better than the room in the special camp for refugees, and asked Tamil people to raise their voice. The four Sri Lankan convicts in the case - Santhan, Robert Payas, Murugan alias Sriharan, and Jayakumar – were moved from the Vellore prison to a special camp located inside the Trichy Central Prison camp. They have been in this camp for the past six months.
Stating that the letter is from a person seeking release “not from jail, but from a room”, Santhan says that there are over 120 foreigners living in the special camp and around 90 of them are from Sri Lanka. “The four of us who have been released in connection with the Rajiv Gandhi case are made to stay in rooms where the windows are closed by a tin sheet, and away from the main portion of the special camp. While Robert Payas and Jayakumar are in one room, Murugan and I share another room. But these rooms are not close to each other. We can’t talk or interact with each other. When I was a prisoner for allegedly being involved in a conspiracy, I was lodged in a prison where we were at least allowed to move around. Now, we are in a room where even sunlight can’t even touch our body and that room has become our world now,” he said. He added that there was no permission to use their phones and they were allowed to meet only their blood relatives.
Santhan has also stated that he has petitioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Ministry of External Affairs to help him move to Sri Lanka and to facilitate him to go to the Deputy High Commission office in Chennai to renew his identity cards, but did not receive any response yet.
“Eelam Tamils and the Tamil diaspora should give their voice for us. Your long silence is sending out the wrong message to those who want to suppress us. For 32 years I have not seen my mother. I couldn’t be with my father in his last years and it has been troubling me. If my desire to be with my mom during her last days is wrong, then no one has to support me,” he wrote.
Six convicts of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case were released by the Supreme Court on November 11. Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991 by a suicide bomber of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at an election meeting in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. Seven people – Murugan, Nalini, AG Perarivalan, Santhan, Jayakumar, Robert Payas and P Ravichandran were convicted in 1991 and were given death penalties, which was later commuted to life imprisonment. AG Perarivalan was released in May 2022.