NE LEGAL BUREAU
CHENNAI, JUNE 17
A petition has been filed in the Madras High Court alleging Nalini Sriharan and her husband Murugan, both serving life term in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, were not being allowed to meet for the past three months “in violation” of prison rules.
In her petition, Nalini’s mother S Padma claimed though the prison manual allowed such meeting once in a fortnight, the authorities did not permit her daughter to meet her husband in the last three months.
She submitted her son-in-law Murugan has resorted to “hunger strike” since June 1 over the issue and hence his life was in ‘danger’.
The petitioner wanted the court to direct the prison authorities to permit Nailni to meet her husband Murugan regularly as per the rules.
The plea moved as a habeas corpus petition, which is usually filed seeking production of a person in court, is likely to be taken up for hearing on Thursday.
Another plea moved by Padma seeking direction to the authorities to permit Nalini and Murugan to make video calls to her mother-in-law in Sri Lanka and sister-in-law in London is pending before the court.
Besides the two, five others were sentenced to death in connection with the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi at nearby Sriperumbudur by an LTTE suicide bomber during an election rally in May, 1991. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment later.
Murugan is lodged in the Central Prison in Vellore while Nalini at the nearby special jail for women.
