NEW DELHI: In his new book My Years with Rajiv and Sonia, RD Pradhan, former Union Home Secretary, for one-and-a-half years with Rajiv Gandhi during his prime ministership, who was also in-charge of Congress chief Sonia Gandhis office between 1998-2003 has claimed that a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) spy had found refuge in the Gandhi home- at 10 Janpath, who passed on crucial information related to Rajiv Gandhis visit to Tamil Nadu, where he was assassinated by a woman suicide bomber in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu on May 21, 1991. Pradhan also claims that Sonia Gandhi shares the same suspicion.
The book also claims that Rajiv Gandhi tended to be rather complacent about his personal security. Pradhan says, Gandhi often found his security cover overbearing. He details one instance where the former Indian PM was so annoyed with his security detail that he actually threw the switch keys of his three escort vehicles into a flowing drain and drove off in anger, leaving his cavalcade stranded in pouring rain and in panic, unable to track the PMs whereabouts.
“There is yet another angle that emerged as the enquiries of the two commissions (Verma and Jain) progressed. There is no doubt in my mind that a ‘mole’ from the LTTE had found refuge in 10 Janpath,” writes R D Pradhan in his book.
“Although many suspects were arrested and some convicted, I think it is ordained that the truth shall not come out. It seems to me to be part of conspiracy hatched by several influential persons in faraway places. Someone inside 10 Janpath provided crucial information to the mole. I know for sure that Sonia Gandhi, who was away in Amethi virtually throughout the 1991 Lok Sabha election campaign, feels the same way,” he further writes, in extracts quoted from the book by the Times of India.
Accusations of conspiracy into Rajiv Gandhis assassination were addressed by two commissions of inquiry- the Justice Verma Commission and the Jain Commission. The second report in fact brought down the United Front government of IK Gujral.
The suicide attack on Rajiv Gandhi was blamed on the LTTE- a separatist organisation from Sri Lanka, when India had just ended its involvement, through the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), in the Sri Lankan Civil War.
The 5,280 page Jain Commission report, comprising eight volumes of interim findings and nine volumes of annexures, held Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi and his DMK responsible for abetting Rajiv Gandhi’s murderers. It blamed two former prime ministers, V.P. Singh and Chandra Shekhar, for their laxity in assessing the threat to Rajiv.
Jain took over 66 months to submit his first report, after examining 110 witnesses, including political luminaries, bureaucrats, terrorists and cranks with incredible conspiracy theories. Based on the deposition of what it calls key and credible witnesses, the report singled out the DMK for its severest indictment.
The report is replete with examples of the DMK’s proximity to the leaders of the LTTE, whose cadres killed Rajiv. While conceding that both the Congress government at the Centre and M.G. Ramachandran’s AIADMK government in the state were responsible for the initial impetus to Tamil militancy, Jain held the DMK guilty of encouraging and assisting the LTTE even after the Indo-Sri Lankan accord of 1987 pitted the Indian Army against the Tigers.
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