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Diabolic motives, 'inhumaneness' earned 'harsh' verdict

The death sentence awarded to all the 26 accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case may sound harsh at the humane level. But at the legal level, it is one natural flow of justice, once the common intent and commonality of motive had been established by the prosecution to the complete satisfaction of the court.

''I have carefully concluded that Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in pursuance of a definite plot, carefully conceived and executed by a highly organised foreign terrorist organisation,'' Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act Special Judge V Navaneetham said while passing the verdict.

That, of course, excludes Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran, the main brain behind the 'dastardly act', his intelligence chief 'Pottu' Amman and women wing's leader Akila, believed to be dead since. They have to stand trial if and when apprehended.

The 2,000-page judgment, incorporating 100,000 of pages of documentation, has found enough motives for the LTTE and Prabhakaran to assassinate Rajiv. For one thing, Rajiv had initiated and initialled the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, which Prabhakaran saw as a betrayal, as proved to the satisfaction of the court.

For another, Prabhakaran felt humbled and humiliated by his being housed exclusively at the Ashoka Hotel, Delhi, when his approval was being sought for the accord. In 'terrorist parlance' that exclusive accommodation was construed as sort of a 'house arrest'. The judge, however, does not dub it that way.

Once the motive was proved -- on the basis of voluminous evidence and documents, including for the first-time wireless intercepts and decoded messages (both admitted as evidence for the first time in Indian courts) -- only the conspiracy remained to be established. The prosecution, as the court concluded after elaborate findings, succeeded there to.

Unlike the common belief, the court was legally and factually convinced that there was enough evidence to prove that the intention was to assassinate Rajiv, and all the 26 accused, along with those dead and the two living (Prabhakaran and Pottu Amman), were only co-conspirators, at different levels.

Once these two conclusions had been arrived at through an elaborate discussion of the evidence and other material on hand, there was no escaping the punishment that was awarded. Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with murder, prescribes a sentence of death, or life term, and nothing less.

The fact of the murder had been proved -- it needed no proving in a non-legal sense -- and the fact of the conspiracy, too, had been established. The inhumaneness of the assassination -- Rajiv Gandhi was blasted off by an innocent-looking woman offering him a garland, of all things -- and the motives behind it obviously went into the court handing down a death verdict on all the accused, whether they facilitated the larger interests of the conspiracy, or procured only a battery or two, which triggered the belt-bomb worn by Dhanu, when it did.

If Eelam's is not agreed upon, the assassination is an act of terrorism. If Eelam were to be conceded, in theory, then it was an 'act of war'. Either way, there was no escaping the seriousness of the act -- and hence the severity of the punishment.

The proof of conspiracy against the LTTE will now automatically force the Centre to seek Prabhakaran's extradition by Colombo, to stand trial in the assassination case in India.

For starters, it would make it that much untenable for the Sri Lankan government to start talking to the LTTE all over again. This prospect too might have contributed to Colombo proscribing the LTTE, and obtaining an arrest warrant against him from a local court, earlier this week.

As the court observed, the assassination was an attempt at interfering with the nation's sovereignty and integrity, by a foreign terrorist organisation with local participation.

It also succeeded in interfering with the democratic process of the land. As is known, following the assassination, the Lok Sabha election had to be postponed in between, and this was an interference with the democratic process, by a foreign terrorist organisation that thus challenged the sovereignty and integrity -- as also the might and standing -- of our nation.

''The Indian judiciary and legal system has shown that it can fight the challenges to the nation's integrity and sovereignty, just as the armed forces have done all along,'' said the Central Bureau of Investigation's Special Investigation Team chief D R Karthikeyan. ''In that sense, it should be a landmark judgment sending out clear signals to all those who are intent on fighting a zero-option war against a great nation, and getting away with it.''

Having said this, some thought should be given to India's foreign policy, where it concerns its neighbours. If Prabhakaran felt betrayed, there was at least some cause for it -- the LTTE having been given some wrong signals by the powers that be at Delhi. Whether it could be the cause for a diabolic assassination -- that too of an Indian leader of promise -- there could be no two opinions about it.

From playing an activist role once, India has come to play an indifferent role in Sri Lanka now. There can now be no two ways about India handling the LTTE as long as Prabhakaran is at the helm. Politically and emotionally, Prabhakaran has become an untouchable in India, and the court verdict makes it legally-binding, in a way.

If someone thought that the court verdict of Wednesday would deal with the political angle behind the conspiracy, like the Jain Commission did, it is not to be. The court has cited the Supreme Court verdict in the Indira Gandhi assassination case in this respect. One of the assassins of Indira Gandhi, namely Kehar Singh, had moved the apex court, arguing that a criminal court could not go into as assassination when a probe panel under the Commissions of Inquiry Act was seized of the matter.

Striking down the argument, the Supreme Court held that a Commission of Inquiry is only recommendative in character without any penal powers. Also, strict adherence to the laws of evidence was applicable to a law court, which was not the case with a probe panel's findings.

That being the case, those politicians who had possibly hoped to take on the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham from where they had left following the Jain Commission controversy, should be sadly mistaken. If anything, it may be the DMK that can use the court verdict to argue from political platforms that none from the party has been mentioned in the court case. Such a position will be legally correct.

The CBI-SIT was charged only with unravelling a political assassination, basing it entirely on the Evidence Act and the TADA Act, where a conspiracy could be linked only vertically.

Unless Pottu Amman and Prabhakaran are brought to book, there is no knowing whether there was an international conspiracy, and whether there was local encouragement and involvement than what has been proved before the Ponamallee court. And whether any political party from India had any role to play at all -- other than those who might have had sympathies for the Tamil cause.

EARLIER REPORTS:
26 sentenced to death for Rajiv Gandhi's assassination
Longest assassination trial reaches appeals stage
Judgment first in Indian legal history
Penchant for photographic record nailed LTTE
SIT built up a huge bank of evidence against LTTE
Prabhakaran had Rajiv killed for being 'anti-Tamil'
V Gopalsamy, three other witnesses turned hostile
25 LTTE militants committed suicide during the probe
Chronology of events
The Accused
Trail of hate

EARLIER REPORTS:
The Jain Commission Controversy

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