Foreign Hand In Rajiv Killing To Be Probed

Regretting the perception abroad of India being a "soft state", Union home minister L K Advani yesterday promised the Lok Sabha that the foreign angle to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi would be thoroughly probed by the multi-disciplinary agency set up under the CBI to investigate the leads provided by the Jain Commission.

In his reply to the two-day debate on the commission's findings and the government's action taken report, Advani said his government would take a

dispassionate and impartial view in carrying out the probe. The Congress leadership would be consulted on certain aspects to fine-tune the investigations, he said.

 

The new agency within the CBI is to comprise representatives of various intelligence agencies, including revenue and banking, as well as ministry of external affairs.

Advani said the government did not favour setting up another commission for wider investigation, which could be carried out by the CBI which had statutory powers.

Terming the assassination on May 21, 1991 in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu as a national tragedy, Advani said: "We have become a soft state. They (outsiders) think they can get away with anything in India. This is an insult to the entire nation".

Referring to LTTE messages intercepted by the intelligence agencies before the assassination, he said the government would inquire whether decoding of these intercepts were delayed due to lack of sophisticated gadgetry or any other reason.

Advani said the government had accepted the exoneration of former Prime Ministers V P Singh and Chandra Shekhar as recommended by the commission.

However, it would investigate the role of two individuals.

The ATR had accepted the recommendation that a possible role of self-styled godman Chandraswami and Subramanian Swamy, MP, in the conspiracy be investigated.

Advani said the commission has recommended that not only the 41 LTTE cadres involved in the assassination be tried, the wider conspiracy aspect involving people within and outside the country be also looked into.

The government has been careful in wording the ATR as it did not want those convicted by the designated court in the assassination case to benefit in appeals pending before the Supreme Court.

To a query whether denial of certain files by the P V Narasimha Rao government would be probed, Advani said the agency under the CBI would have a lot of scope to take care of issues like this.