On parole, Nalini attends father’s funeral

Chennai, Feb 24 (IANS) Nalini Sriharan, serving life term for her role in former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, on Wednesday attended her father P. Sankaranarayanan's final rites here during a 12-hour parole.

Speaking to reporters here, she said all the convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case were innocent and must be freed from the prison.

She is lodged in Vellore prison, around 150 km from here.

Though her father died in Tirunelvelli, the body was brought here for final rites.

Nalini was sentenced to death by a special court for her involvement in Gandhi's assassination at Sriperumbudur near Chennai on May 21, 1991.

The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after Sonia Gandhi, the former prime minister's widow, petitioned for clemency -- for the sake of Nalini's daughter.

Nalini, an Indian, had accompanied the Sri Lankan woman suicide bomber who blew up Rajiv Gandhi with concealed explosives.

Nalini, who was a close friend of an LTTE operative known as Murugan, who too is an accused in the case, later gave birth to a girl in prison.