The Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday informed the Madras High Court of the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commission in Chennai having issued temporary travel documents to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convicts Murugan, alias Vetrivel Sriharan; Balasundaram Robert Payas; and Shanmugalingam Jeyakumar.
Appearing before Justices R. Suresh Kumar and K. Kumaresh Babu, Additional Public Prosecutor R. Muniyapparaj said that the travel documents were valid up to September 22 and that the three released convicts could fly out of the country after the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer (FRRO) in Chennai issued deportation orders.
The APP said that after the receipt of the travel documents, the State government had forwarded them to the FRRO, functioning under the Union Home Ministry, on Monday and requested issuance of deportation orders. The FRRO was expected to take follow up action within a week or so, the law officer added. The Division Bench recorded the submissions made by him and closed a writ petition filed by Sriharan, before the issuance of the travel document, seeking a direction to the Director of Rehabilitation, serving under the State government, to issue an identity card to him so that he could fly out of the country.
The Bench told the petitioner’s counsel P. Pugalenthi that the identity card would not be necessary at present since the High Commission had already issued the travel document, which by itself would be sufficient for the FRRO to issue the deportation orders for all three of them. The Supreme Court had in 2022 ordered the premature release of all seven surviving convicts in the case. Of them, four (Santhan, alias T. Suthenthirarajah; Sriharan, Robert Payas and Jeyakumar) were Sri Lankan citizens. Despite their release from prison, they were detained at a foreigners’ detention camp in Tiruchi for want of travel documents.
Though Suthenthirarajah was the first to obtain the travel document to fly to Sri Lanka, he died at a government hospital in Chennai due to certain ailments, and therefore, only his body could be flown to the island nation early this month.
Among the two Indian convicts A.G. Perarivalan and S. Nalini, the latter had married Sriharan and given birth to girl in prison after her arrest in the 1991 assassination. The girl was subsequently taken by her paternal grandparents to Sri Lanka and had now settled down in the U.K.
