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Rajiv Gandhi Assassination
Rajiv Gandhi Assassination
Rajiv Gandhi (20 August 1944 - 21 May 1991) was an Indian Politician who
served as the SIXTH PRIME MINISTER of INDIA from 1984 to 1989. He took
of ce after the 1984 assassination of his mother, then Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi, to become the youngest INDIAN PRIME MINISTER at the age of 40.
At the time, India had just ended its involvement, through the Indian Peace
Keeping Force, in the SRI LANKAN CIVIL WAR. Subsequent accusations of
conspiracy have been addressed by the two commissions of inquiry and have
brought down at least one national government.
ASSASSINATION
Rajiv Gandhi was busy campaigning for the upcoming elections along with G.K.
Moopanar in southern state of India. On 21 May, after campaigning in
Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, his next stop was Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu.
About two hours after arriving in Madras (now Chennai), Gandhi was driven by
motorcade in a white Ambassador car to Sriperumbudur, stopping along the way
at a few other election campaigning venues. When Rajiv reached a campaign rally
in Sriperumbudur, he left his car and began walking towards the dais where he
was to deliver a speech. Along the way, he was garlanded by many well-wishers,
Indian National Congress workers and school children. The assassin, Dhanu
(Thenmozhi Rajaratnam), approached and greeted him. She then bent down to
touch his feet and detonated an RDX explosive-laden belt tucked below her dress
at exactly 10:10 PM. Gandhi, his assassin and 14 others were killed in the
explosion that followed, along with 43 others who were grievously injured. The
assassination was caught on lm by a local photographer, Haribabu, whose
camera and lm was found intact at the site despite him also dying in the blast.
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VICTIMS
Apart from the suicide bomber Thenmozhi Rajaratnam, several people were
killed in the blast on May 21,1991.
SECURITY LAPSE
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Gandhi also defended the signing of the Indo - Sri Lanka accord in the
same interview. The LTTE decision to kill him was perhaps aimed at
preventing him from coming to power again. Thereafter, the Justice
J.S. Verma Commission was formed to look into the security lapses
that contributed to the killing.
The nal report, submitted in June 1992, concluded that the security
arrangements for the former PM were adequate but the local
Congress Party leaders disrupted and broke these arrangements.
The Narasimha Rao government initially rejected Verma's ndings
but later accepted it under pressure. However, no action was taken on
the recommendations of the commission.
Despite no action, the ndings raised vital questions that have
previously been consistently raised by political analysts. Sources
have indicated that Gandhi was repeatedly informed that there was a
threat to his life and that he should not travel to Tamil Nadu. In fact,
the then governor of Tamil Nadu Bhishma Narain Singh, broke of cial
protocol and twice warned Gandhi about the threat to his life if he
visited the state.
Subramanian Swamy said in his book, Sri Lanka in Crisis: India's
Options (2007), that an LTTE delegation had met Rajiv Gandhi on 5
March 1991. Another delegation met him around 14 March 1991 in
New Delhi.
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