India to deport 4 freed Rajiv Gandhi case convicts

CHENNAI: India is taking steps to deport the four freed convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case to Sri Lanka, the Centre informed Madras high court on Thursday.

Usually, convicts released from Indian prisons are immediately deported to their country of origin if they possess valid passports and other documents. 

Since Sriharan alias Murugan, Jayakumar, Santhan alias Suthenthiraraja and Robert Pius had entered India illegally without a passport, they could not be deported, the government told the court.

"We have addressed a communication to Sri Lankan high commission to make necessary arrangements to provide passports to the four persons. Once the documents are arranged, they will be sent back to Sri Lanka," the government added.

The submissions were made on a plea moved by S Nalani, co-convict and wife of Sriharan, seeking to permit her husband, currently lodged at a special camp for foreigners in Trichy, to travel to the Sri Lankan mission in Chennai to apply for a passport. 

She claimed that she had approached the high court because the special camp authorities had denied her husband the permission to travel.

(Times of India)