In a January 1998 judgment that shocked human rights activists, all 26 accused in the assassination case were sentenced to death. The in-camera TADA trial in Poonamalee took six years to complete and LTTE supremo V Prabhakaran was blamed for masterminding the assassination.

The following year, days before the accused were to hang, the Supreme Court intervened and converted the death sentence of four persons and others to various jail terms. The Supreme Court ruling punctured many holes in the case of CBI’s Special Investigating Team (SIT).

THE ACCUSED, ON DEATH ROW, STILL ABSCONDING

Among the pile of undecided death penalty cases pending with the President presently are those of the accused in the assassination case, Nalini (supposed to have been the stand-by assassin), her husband Murugan and two others, Perarivalan and Santhan. The other 22 accused are serving various jail terms.

Besides the 26 facing trial, 20 more suspects have been identified, 11 of whom are Sri Lankans. The list includes Kumaran Pathmanathan and Baby Subramaniam.

JAIN COMMISSION’S UNFINISHED TASK

Justice M C Jain Commission was appointed by the Government in August 1991 to probe the larger conspiracy behind the assassination. The leakage of sections of the Commission’s interim report, which accused M Karunanidhi and Tamils of a role in the assassination, eventually led to the Congress withdrawing support and the fall of the I K Gujaral Government.

Following the submission of Jain’s final report and presentation of the Action Taken Report in Parliament, the Government set up the Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) in 1998 located in the Central Bureau of Investigation.

THE MDMA’S UNENDING PROBE

With the assassination case being a “sentimental issue” with the Congress party, the MDMA has been given one extension after another, the last in June. In successive status reports, the CBI had reported that they have dispatched 23 Letters Rogatory (LRs) across the globe, but got replies from very few countries, many of which asked India for specific assurances for death penalties not being awarded to the suspects.

Jain Commission left behind the following tasks for the MDMA:

• To inquire into the role of Godman Chandraswami, M Karunanidhi and Dr Subramanian Swamy in the assassination

• To investigate and follow up the story of Mahant Sewa Das

• To bring the absconding accused, including Prabhakaran and Pottu Amman

• To investigate into the escape and death of Shanmugam

• Investigate role of 21 Sri Lankan and Indian suspects identified by Justice Jain

• Inquire into Justice Jain’s observations on delay in decoding secret messages of RAW