May 21, 1991, the day was drawing to a close. Rajiv
Gandhi, India’s youngest prime minister to date, was then a former PM,
desperately looking to return to power after the VP Singh government fell. On
the campaign trail, Indira Gandhi’s son and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s grandson
arrived at the small town of Sriperumbudur in the south Indian state of Tamil
Nadu from Andhra Pradesh.

The Gandhi family’s shining light, then 46 years old,
walked out of his white ambassador and walked towards the dais to deliver a
speech. Thousands of people, Congress workers, students and members of the
citizenry had gathered to meet the man who many expected to return to the driver’s
seat of India’s destiny.

Also Read | SC orders release of Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convict A G Perarivalan

Moments before getting out of his car, Rajiv was
speaking to journalist Neena Gopal, when he had a strange, almost outlandish
premonition. On being asked whether he felt his life was at risk, Gandhi said, “Have
you noticed every time any South Asian leader of any import rises to a position
of power or is about to achieve something for himself or his country, he is cut
down, attacked, killed look at Mrs [Indira] Gandhi, Sheikh Mujib, look at
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, at Zia-ul-Haq, Bandaranaike.” The conversation is documented
in Neena Gopal’s book “The Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.”

On his way to the dais, Rajiv was being garlanded by
party workers and admirers. From amidst the crowd, a 17-year-old girl emerged –
Thenmozi Rajaratnam, also known as Dhanu. Dhanu bent down to touch Gandhi’s
feet, and at 10:10 pm, detonated an RDX explosive tucked below her dress. A
massive explosion followed. Gandhi, Dhanu and 14 others were killed.

Also Read | Who is AG Perarivalan?

As the nation mourned the killing of yet another prime
minister (Rajiv’s mother Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984), Indian
investigation agencies jumped in to uncover the conspiracy that killed Rajiv
Gandhi. As probe agencies got to work, they found that the hit had been ordered
by Velupillai Prabhakaran.

Prabhakaran was the leader of the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
. A terrorist for some, and a freedom fighter for others,
Prabhakaran is said to have fostered a personal animosity against Rajiv Gandhi
for sending Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka to counter the Tamil
Eelam movement.

Thenmozhi Rajaratnam or Dhanu, the girl who detonated
the explosive, had joined the Tamil rebels at a young age after her brother, a
well-known LTTE cadre, died. While Dhanu herself died in the explosion, India’s
Supreme Court convicted seven people for the assassination of the former prime
minister.

The seven convicted were: Murugan alias Sriharan, a
LTTE operative from Sri Lanka; Nalini, Murugan’s wife; Santhan alias T.
Suthenthiraraja, a Sri Lankan national; Robert Pious, a Sri Lankan national and
his brother-in-law Jayakumar; Ravichandran, another Sri Lankan national; and AG
Perarivalan, an Indian citizen who was arrested for supplying batteries for the
explosive.

The day after the assassination, the Indian government
ordered a CBI inquiry into the death. A special investigation team (SIT) was
created which confirmed the role of LTTE in the assassination, which the
Supreme Court of India upheld.

Of the seven convicts, four were sentenced to death
and the others to various other jail terms. Supreme Court Judge KT Thomas
observed that the conspiracy to kill Rajiv Gandhi was hatched in phases
beginning from 1987 and spanned several years. Later, the death sentences were
commuted to life terms by the Supreme Court citing an inordinate delay on
behalf of the President of India in deciding on mercy petitions.

On May 18, 2022, 30 years, 11 months and 28 days after
the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the Supreme Court ordered the release of AG
Perarivalan. Perarivalan was convicted of buying the two batteries that powered
the explosive. All through his three-decade-long jail term, Perarivalan had
claimed that he did not know the purpose for which he bought the batteries.

A man with a stellar record in jail, Perarivalan has
earned various academic qualifications during his jail term and also authored a
book.

Rajiv Gandhi’s family, including his wife Sonia, son
Rahul and daughter Priyanka, has pardoned the killers. On February 21, 2021,
Rahul Gandhi had said in reply to a question by a student, “I don’t have any
anger or hatred towards anybody. Of course, I lost my father and for me it was
a difficult time… I felt tremendous pain, but I don’t feel anger, I don’t feel
any hatred or anger, I forgive.”