As many as 11 convicts, including three involved in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination in 1991, are facing the gallows in Tamil Nadu prisons, but their petitions are pending with the President of India or with the courts, according to a senior prison official here.
Three killers – Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan – and three AIADMK workers – Nedunchezhiyan, Muniyappan and Maadhu alias Ravindran – are lodged in the Vellore central prison. The AIADMK men were awarded the death sentence in connection with a bus burning case in Dharmapuri in which three college girls were burnt alive after violence broke out in the state following the pronouncement of a court order convicting their leader J. Jayalalithaa in the Kodaikanal Pleasant Stay hotel case on February 2, 2000.
Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan were awarded the death sentence by the trial court on May 11, 1999. Their review petitions were dismissed by the Supreme Court on October 8, 1999. The Governor rejected their mercy petitions on April 25, 2000 and they sent their mercy pleas to the President of India on April 26, 2000. However, the President had rejected their pleas in the first week of August 2011 after a lapse of 11 years and September 9, 2011 was fixed for the execution of their sentence. But they escaped the noose since the high court had on August 30, 2011 stayed their execution on petitions from them to substitute the death sentence with life imprisonment. Now, their petitions are pending before the Supreme Court.
There are two convicts each in Coimbatore and Cuddalore prisons waiting to be hanged.
The two in Coimbatore prison are Manoharan and Selvam. “Manoharan is the last prisoner who was sentenced to death. He was involved in the infamous siblings Muskan and Ritesh murder case. Selvam was convicted for a murder.
At Cuddalore, convict Sundararajan was awarded death for kidnapping and murdering a 7-year-old boy, while Jayakumar was convicted for raping a minor girl and also murdering another youth.
In Madurai prison, Selvam is to be hanged for a murder he committed.
All the 11 have appealed against the death sentence and their applications are pending either with the President or various courts, a jail official pointed out.
Auto Shankar, accused of rape and murders in suburban Chennai, was the last person to be hanged in Tamil Nadu in April 1995.