Rajiv Gandhi's Assassination Part 04

This series of blogs explains various dimensions of Rajiv Gandhi's assassination. Though LTTE carried out the assassination, they were just hitmen contracted by someone very powerful. 

The real conspirators, planners and financiers were different people. They were hiding behind layers of curtains and virtually untraceable. After assassination, they executed a perfect plan to cover their tracks. Hence they cannot be traced but one can make a logical conclusion about the main kingpin. 

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Part 4 ...

In the last update, we saw how the conspiracy was hatched to kill Rajiv Gandhi and how
SIT confirmed that Rajiv’s assassination was a work of LTTE.

There is no doubt LTTE was responsible for the assassination but does it mean they were
solely responsible? How about the idea that LTTE was just used as a paid hit men but
conspirators were someone else?

Think it differently for a moment, what benefit LTTE would have got by killing Rajiv? Politically
it was more suicidal because, thereafter, not only Sri Lankan government but Indian
government also hunted Prabhakaran. Indian government destroyed LTTE sympathizers in
India and ruined their support. This clearly shows, killing Rajiv was not a good action for LTTE.

But still they did it, which means they were given an assurance of no retribution from the
Indian government.

AFTER THE ASSASSINATION…..

Now let's examine what happened after the assassination.

After Rajiv was killed, the team went back to the safe house in Chennai and stayed for
couple of days. But they knew, it was not safe to stay there for a long time. First they
tried getting a boat to go back to Sri Lanka but Indian Navy and Coast Guard was very
vigilant and it was impossible to breakthrough. Hence they decided to go to some
different places and stay there till matter cooled down.

Nalini and Shanmugam were in relationship and they took off on their own and rest of
the LTTE team used the empty fuel tanker truck of a LTTE sympathizer to get out of
Chennai.

Investigating SIT team had photographs of the killer team from Haribabu’s camera but
they were struggling to get identification of the other team members. This is because,
all of them except Nalini were from Sri Lanka and CBI and IB had no intel on them
Hence they decided to first follow Nalini. Nalini and Shanmugam were nabbed in
Tirupati after about a month where they got married in the temple. 

Nalini and Shanmugam started spilling the beans after the arrest. They could give
names and identities of the LTTE killer team but beyond that they could not give a
lot of intel on who made the plan, who was involved from Sri Lanka, how Dhanu
was selected and trained etc. Hence SIT team was running blank.

PLOT TO KILL LTTE KILLER TEAM

SIT was sure that the Sivrasan and other LTTE killer team members would not leave
South India for the reason of getting a safe cover. Hence they alerted the state police
of all the four Southern states. In turn, the Southern states started a huge intel network
to trace LTTE killer team.

In the month of August 1991, Bangalore police got a tip that some suspected activities
are seen in a house in Konanakunte, outskirts of Bangalore city. Bangalore Police
confirmed the tip, informed SIT team and made plans to capture LTTE killer team
alive by disguising them as milkman.

As they were making the plans, they kept a secret vigil on the suspect’s house. It was
very important to keep it secret, otherwise the LTTE killer team would have escaped or
killed themselves. But at the same time Home Ministry from New Delhi ordered
Bangalore police to stop the operation as Home Ministry wanted to send commandos
from Delhi.

Airlifting commandos from Delhi and bringing them to Bangalore took almost 24 hours.
During that time, police activities increased near the suspect’s house and they spotted
police. This immediately started gun fight for hours and wounded five policeman. As
the darkness fell, the operation became still more difficult for the police because the
LTTE killer team was firing from the house without light.

The commandos from Delhi finally arrived next day early morning. By then, the firing
had gone down and commandos should have taken this opportunity to capture the
LTTE killer team alive. But they made no such attempt and instead used heavy
weaponry. They used mortar firing till they were convinced that after such a heavy
firing, no one in the house would be alive. This shows, they had clear orders from
the Delhi to kill everyone and not to capture them. 

The LTTE mastermind, Sivrasan was close to LTTE chief Prabhakaran and he
could have given lot of vital information to SIT team, if was captured alive. Hence
someone in Delhi took the decision to kill all of them 

This is typical action to cover up in the political assassination.

It did not end there…

LTTE chief Prabhakaran was the main person who ordered Rajiv’s assassination. He
knew too much and would have been dangerous, if caught alive. Later after few years,
Prabhakaran had expressed his regrets for killing Rajiv Gandhi and realized that he
was used. But he was a big danger to the real conspirators. Hence eliminating him
too was very important.

The real conspirators got this chance in June 2009. Sri Lankan army launched a final

assault on LTTE in May 2009. It was a very brutal military operation in which Tamilians

were killed mercilessly. Prabhakaran lost all his bases, all his trusted lieutenants were

killed and he started running in jungles with his family to save his life. Soon he realized,

he cannot escape the certain death if he stayed there any more. Hence he thought of

escaping the island and go to Norway. But escaping through sea was not easy

because Indian Navy had blocked all sea routes to fail his escape attempts. 

This is very important to note. WHY UPA GOVERNMENT SHOULD SEND INDIAN

NAVY TO SRI LANKA, SO AS TO BLOCK PRABHAKARAN’S ESCAPE? It was

Sri Lanka's internal matter and they should have handled it on their own.

One may argue that Gandhi family might have thought of taking a revenge of Rajiv’s

killing and that is why they might have ordered Indian Navy to block the island. This

argument looks real absurd…. Why India should deploy its Navy in a foreign land to

stop one person from escaping? 

Was it because of vengeance that Gandhi family deployed Indian Navy or was it out of

fear that if Prabhakaran escaped the island and reached a different country, then he

might open his mouth and tell the whole truth about Rajiv’s assassination?

It is rumored that Prabhakaran finally made contact with someone very high in Delhi

and asked a route to escape. This Delhi person asked him to come out of the jungle

and reach a particular point on the seashore. He assured Prabhakaran that he would

have a boat waiting for him to carry him out.

Prabhakaran came out of the hiding and reached the designated point. To his surprise,

there was no boat waiting but Sri Lankan soldiers waiting for him. He was captured

alive and then he was assassinated at point blank range.

Again here, we see the same pattern….it was an OPERATION TO KILL.

More in next part.....