LTTE had Plan B ready to kill Rajiv Gandhi in Delhi
Sandeep Unnithan New Delhi, February 28, 2014 | UPDATED 09:33 IST
Key entries in what the CBI's SIT called the 'Delhi plot' figure in the LTTE assassin's diaries. Copies of the diaries, exclusively obtained by India Today, reveal how Sivarasan planned to infiltrate a travel agency in the capital. The agency is run by a distant relative of Rajiv Gandhi's close aide, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's wife Suneet.
An entry in Sivarasan's diary, which was seized by the CBI from a Tiger safehouse in July 1991, notes a 'V. Kalyasundaram, President Travel Service, 811 Arunachal Building, Barakhamba Road, Connaught Place, New Delhi-11'. Enquiries with the agency revealed that Kalyanasundaram worked there as assistant manager and moved out in 2004.
Kalyanasundaram, who is now settled in Chennai, denies ever having been contacted by Sivarasan or anyone related to him. K. Ragothaman, the CBI's chief investigator in the case, says the LTTE had got his contact details from Kalyanasundaram's uncle, Jagadeesan, a retired armyman who ran a rice mill in Thopputhurai. "It was a lead that the LTTE never followed up."
Mani Shankar Aiyar, when contacted by India Today, denied any knowledge of the existence of such a plan and dismissed it outright. "Nobody ever made any contact with me. The connection to President Travels is very distant and I didn't use them (for ticketing) until after I was elected (to Mayiladuthurai constituency in 1991)," he said.
Ragothaman explains how the LTTE would have used this lead. "The LTTE worked several months in advance. They opened safehouses in Chennai in October 1990, seven months before the assassination. They used Congress MP Maragatham Chandrasekhar to get their human bomb close to Rajiv Gandhi in Sriperumbudur, without her ever suspecting it," he says.
On April 28, the LTTE sent Sonia, a 17-year-old suicide bomber, to a safehouse in Chennai where she would remain in wait for Plan B. She was chosen for being light complexioned, which would allow her to merge into a crowd in New Delhi. Sivarasan had already recruited Kanagasabapathy, a retired Sri Lankan Tamil government servant for the purpose. Kanagasabapathy, in his late 70s, was the father of a deceased LTTE commander. In May, Kanagasabapathy had hired a safehouse in the capital: House number A 233, in north Moti Bagh. The LTTE identified it using a real estate broker in nearby Shanti Niketan.
The two-room Central government quarter, illegally sub-let by its government allottee, offered the perfect cover. It was located in a sprawl of single-storey government accommodation in the heart of the national capital. It was just eight kilometres away from Rajiv Gandhi's 10 Janpath residence. Kanagasabapathy paidRs.5000 as advance to the broker. "My grand-daughter will come and stay here in a few days," he assured the broker. 'Athirai', he said, wanted to study Hindi and computer applications in the capital, he said.
Sivarasan was, however, confident of assassinating the former Prime Minister in Tamil Nadu. The Tigers' intelligence chief, Pottu Amman, favoured the national capital. "Why not we try Delhi?" asked Amman in a coded message in March 1991. "I'm confident that I can do it here (in Tamil Nadu)," Sivarasan replied. Pottu Amman overruled him and insisted he continue with the Delhi operation. The Delhi plot was abandoned because the Tigers were successful in Sriperumbudur.
The Delhi plan was abandoned soon after the LTTE murdered Rajiv Gandhi on May 21, 1991. But its existence told the investigators of the LTTE's fanatical determination to stop Rajiv Gandhi from becoming Prime Minister.
Athirai and Kanagasabapathy were arrested from a hotel in Paharganj in June 1991 as they attempted to flee to Nepal. They were released in 1999 after an eight-year jail term because the Supreme Court did not link them to the Sriperumbudur plot. They migrated to Switzerland. Athirai married a co-accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination Vicky alias Vighneshwaran.
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