New Delhi: A representation has been sent to the Union Home Ministry by a Delhi-based lawyer, urging an investigation into alleged lapses in the assassination case of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and suspected tampering with intelligence inputs. The representation, made by lawyer Saneev Pathak, is based on security expert Namit Verma's recent assertion that Israeli intelligence had shared crucial information with India about a potential threat to Rajiv Gandhi. However, the file containing this information mysteriously vanished after Gandhi's assassination in 1991.
Verma elaborated during a discussion titled 'Intelligence Cooperation and Security Challenges in the Emerging World Order' on May 2 that the intelligence input from a foreign nation regarding an assassination plan and related payments disappeared from government records after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination. The lawyer's representation also highlighted that the report of the Jain Commission of Inquiry (JCI), led by Justice (Retd) Milap Chand Jain, noted the alleged tampering of evidence and withholding of vital information by certain individuals to protect the perpetrators of the crime.
The representation argues that it is suspicious that the commission's report was not utilized as the basis for prosecuting those responsible for the assassination and its conspiracy, despite the government being under the same party for two successive terms, led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi. The lawyer has urged the Ministry of Home Affairs to initiate an investigation against the then Minister-in-Charge of the probe into the former Prime Minister's assassination, alleging offenses including evidence tampering and destruction.
Speaking to the media, the lawyer claimed that no action was taken to identify, prosecute, and punish those who allegedly tampered with and destroyed evidence related to the case. Instead, they reportedly manipulated case records to mislead investigators and the inquiry. Security expert Namit Verma, in an interview, revealed that he had recently participated in an event where he discussed intelligence failures, citing the Hamas attack of October 2023 as a significant example. He mentioned that Mossad had provided intelligence to Indian agencies about the threat to Rajiv Gandhi, but no action was taken.
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991, in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, when an LTTE activist detonated an RDX-laden suicide belt, killing at least 14 others along with Gandhi and the assassin.
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