Jain Panel Submits Interim Report On Rajiv Assassination

The Jain commission, which got the 12th six-month extension till next February, yesterday submitted its interim report on the probe into the conspiracy aspect of Rajiv Gandhis assassination, exactly six years after it was set up.

The 17-volume report was presented by one-man-panel chairman Justice M C Jain to home minister Indrajit Gupta at his official residence yesterday morning.

While the actual report is contained in eight volumes of over 2000 pages, the rest nine volumes contain annexures, including top secret documents of security agencies, relating to the threat perceptions and the growth of Tamil militancy in India and Northern Sri Lanka.

Justice Jain later told PTI that the report covered the sequence of events since 1981, especially the growth of militancy, with particular reference to Tamil militancy, till the day when Rajiv Gandhi and 20 others were killed by a human bomb in Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991.

The panel had probed the sequence of events since 1981 because ethnic riots had broken out then in the northern parts of Sri Lanka, which led to the growth of militancy there and in Tamil Nadu.

The report is based on the commission proceedings covering two aspects of its investigations the sequence of events since 1981 leading to the assassination and the facts and circumstances of the assassination.

The names of former Prime Ministers, P V Narasimha Rao, V P Singh and Chandrashekhar, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha, finance minister P Chidambaram, who was the internal security minister during Gandhis tenure, and controversial godman Chandraswamy, were also understood to have figured in the report.

According to sources, the report is also understood to have expressed its unhappiness over the non-cooperation by the government in submitting certain vital documents, delayed deposition by some key political figures and withdrawal of DMK from the proceedings and its reintroduction after some time.

The panel also plans to probe certain other aspects, including the incident in Bangalore in which the prime suspect, one-eyed-jack Sivarasan and some other LTTE activists were found dead after an encounter with the police, commission sources had said earlier.

Though the commission was set up in August 1991, it started functioning only in October, 1993. Justice Jain said he expected the formal notification extending the panels tenure to reach him yesterday.

The delays in the submission of certain vital documents and furnishing of evidence by various government agencies would also find a place in the report, the sources said.

Besides this, Justice Jain, has attributed the delay in completing its task to frequent changes in the counsels for the Union and the Tamil Nadu governments, the court cases questioning the jurisdiction of the commission and the court stay orders.