Rajiv Gandhi’s Killer tops Class 12 Examination with Flying Colors

Even as they face the gallows, two convicts in former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination case have come out with flying colours uin the Plus 2 examinations in Tamil Nadu.

According to officials, Murugan alian Sriharan and A.G. Perarivalan alias Arivu had scored high marks.

Murugan got 200/200 in Commerce and an overall 80 percentage (983/1,200 marks) while Perarivalan scored 91 percent (1,096/1,200 marks).

The two wrote the exams as private candidates at the Vellore jail.

A total of 35 prisoners from different jails in Tamil Nadu appeared for the Plus 2 exams this year. All of them have passed.

“The atmosphere in the prisions is changing for better. We look at prisioners as individuals,” S.K. Dogra, the additional director general of police, told IANS.

According to him, there seems to be an improvemnt in self discipline among prisioners and they work hard.

“Further there is now far more trust between the prisioners and the jail officials,” Dogra added.

A Tamil Tiger woman suicide bomber assassinated Gandhi at an election meeting near Chennai on May 21, 1991.

Perarivalan is facing the gallows, along with Murugan and Santhan. The three had sought a stay on their execution on the ground that the President had taken 11 years in deciding their mercy pleas after the apex court rejected their petition in August last year.

Perarivalan was 19 years when he was picked up by the CBI on June 11, 1991. He was charged with assisting the assassination by buying a nine-volt battery to assemble a bomb for Sivarasan, one of the assassins. Perarivalan is the youngest accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. An avid reader, Perarivalan has been fond of poetry and the teachings of Tamil saint poet Thiruvalluvar.

Another inmate Soundarapandian in Madurai prison has scored 1080 marks (90 per cent) and a prisoner in Puzhal prison Munusamy has scored 988 (82.33 per cent) in the class 12 examination. Tamil Nadu education department released the results of the Class 12 examinations Yesterday