Daughter visits Gandhi assassin

A DEVOTED daughter's attempts to understand the assassination of her father in one of modern India's most notorious political killings has led Priyanka Gandhi to a prison cell meeting with one of the killers of her father, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Ms Gandhi, now 36 and the mother of two young children, was 19 at the time her father was blown up by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber in May, 1991.

The country's biggest selling English-language newspaper, the Times of India, said accounts of Ms Gandhi's meeting last month with Nalini Sriharan, 43, the only survivor of the conspiracy that killed her father, add "another chapter to an amazing story of how the Gandhi family has tried so bravely to come to terms with the tragedy of Rajiv's death".

The paper reported that a "visibly emotional Priyanka made Nalini sit next to her and asked several short questions related to the assassination. (Such as) Why had it happened? For what purpose? What was Nalini's involvement?"

Priyanka is quoted as saying, "My father was a good person. It could have been resolved through talks. Had you known about my father's good nature, you would not have done this."

Nalini, who was 26 at the time of the assassination, was sentenced to death but that was commuted to life imprisonment after Gandhi's widow, and Ms Gandhi's mother, Sonia Gandhi, pleaded for clemency for the sake of the convicted woman's five-year-old daughter.

Ms Gandhi asked repeatedly who was behind the assassination plot, which is blamed on Tamil Tiger separatists fighting in Sri Lanka.

Nalini said she did not know.

The Times of India reported that Nalini believed Ms Gandhi was moved to meet her following a series of letters sent from prison to Sonia Gandhi, including one wishing her well when she was in hospital recently.

Details of the meeting, which took place in the prison for women in Vellore, in the state of Tamil Nadu, on March 19, was confirmed by Nalini's mother as well as her lawyers.

But with Ms Gandhi remaining silent about the reported encounter, a lawyer in the state capital, Chennai, is reported to have filed an application with a local court to get details of the meeting.

Rajiv Gandhi was widely esteemed in India as a politician who was a genuinely decent person. Seventeen years after his assassination, he remains deeply mourned by his widow and two children, Priyanka and her brother, Rahul, a leader of the Congress party and the man tipped to become prime minister after the next general election.

Source: theaustralian