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Sonia wants Nalini to be spared the gallows

Congress president Sonia Gandhi has urged President K R Narayanan to commute the death sentence awarded to Nalini, one of the four persons convicted for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, to life imprisonment.

Gandhi, widow of the former prime minister, conveyed to the President her family's wish that the life of Nalini, on death row with three others, be spared.

Gandhi had a private meeting with the President during which she said she, her son Rahul and daughter Priyanka Vadra all felt that the death sentence awarded to Nalini should be commuted to life imprisonment as she is now the mother of a child, Congress spokesman Ajit Jogi said.

Earlier this week, Gandhi had disclosed to Mohini Giri, former chairperson of the National Commission for Women, that she had met the President in this regard.

Dr Giri said at a press conference in New Delhi today that she had met Gandhi to ascertain her views regarding a mercy petition being filed by Guild of Service, a non-governmental organisation run by Giri herself, on Nalini's behalf.

"Mrs Gandhi told me that she had already conveyed to the President to commute the death sentence against Nalini and that she had no objection to our filing a mercy petition," Dr Giri said.

"Mrs Sonia Gandhi categorically told me that neither she nor her son or daughter wanted any of the four convicts hanged. She specially expressed the view that no child should be orphaned by an act of State," Dr Giri added.

Nalini and her husband Murugan, who is also on death row, have an eight-year-old daughter who was born in prison. Besides them, two others, Perarivalan and Santhan, have also been sentenced to die in the case.

The Supreme Court had on October 8 rejected the review petitions of the four condemned prisoners for commutation of their sentence and re-affirmed the death penalty awarded to them by the trial court and confirmed by the apex court on May 11.

On May 11, the Supreme Court had confirmed the capital punishment against the four while commuting the sentence to life imprisonment in the case of three others -- Robert Payas, Jayakumar and Pavichandran -- and acquitting 19 others.

But Justice K T Thomas, one of the justices on the three-judge bench of the court, had held that the death sentence was not justified in Nalini's case and had awarded her life imprisonment.

While Tamil Nadu Governor Fatima Beevi has rejected the clemency petitions filed on behalf of the four prisoners, President Narayanan has not yet given his decision.

Dr Giri said that the Guild of Service had forwarded a mercy petition to the President last week to save Nalini from the gallows and her eight-year-old daughter from becoming an orphan.

She said she had also written to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and to the National Human Rights Commission and the NCW in this regard.

UNI

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