Three Sri Lankan men convicted in the assassination of India’s former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi were deported to the capital Colombo on Wednesday following a repatriation order by New Delhi.
The men, Robert Payas, Murugan and Jayakumar were among six convicts who were granted early release by the Supreme Court in 2022 for their “good conduct”. They had spent more than 23 years in jail.
They were recently issued travel documents by their home country.
The three were taken by police to Chennai International Airport in the southern state of Tamil Nadu from a special camp in Tiruchirappalli city where they were kept after their release from jail.
India's Supreme Court had commuted the death sentence of Indian citizen Nalini Sriharan, Murugan’s wife who was also convicted in the case, to life imprisonment in 2000 on the consideration that she has a daughter.
She accompanied her husband to the airport
Mr Gandhi, India’s Prime Minister between 1984 and 1989, was assassinated by Tamil rebels in 1991 over the signing of a “peace agreement” with Colombo and sending Indian troops to the island nation in 1987 to end the ethnic conflict between the Sri Lankan government and Tamils who were demanding a separate nation.
The 47-year-old politician was a member of the Indian National Congress, and was campaigning for the national elections in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu on May 21, 1991, when he was killed in a suicide bomb attack by the Sri Lankan separatist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
A special anti-terrorist court sentenced 26 people to death in January 1998.
A year later, the Supreme Court had upheld the death sentence of four convicts: AG Perarivalan, Murugan, Nalini Sriharan and Suthendraraja and handed life sentences to Robert Payas, Jayakumar and Ravichandran while freeing 19 others.
Besides Nalini Sriharan’s commuted sentence in 2000, the Supreme Court commuted the three other death sentences to life in 2014.
The four had appealed for a mercy petition in 2001, which was rejected by then-president Pratibha Patil in 2011. They had also appealed to several courts for reprieve.
AG Perarivalan, who was 19 when he was arrested after he confessed to buying batteries used in the improvised explosive device that killed Mr Gandhi, was freed in May 2022.
The others were released in November the same year.
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
Company profile
Name: Dukkantek
Started: January 2021
Founders: Sanad Yaghi, Ali Al Sayegh and Shadi Joulani
Based: UAE
Number of employees: 140
Sector: B2B Vertical SaaS(software as a service)
Investment: $5.2 million
Funding stage: Seed round
Investors: Global Founders Capital, Colle Capital Partners, Wamda Capital, Plug and Play, Comma Capital, Nowais Capital, Annex Investments and AMK Investment Office
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Quick pearls of wisdom
Focus on gratitude: And do so deeply, he says. “Think of one to three things a day that you’re grateful for. It needs to be specific, too, don’t just say ‘air.’ Really think about it. If you’re grateful for, say, what your parents have done for you, that will motivate you to do more for the world.”
Know how to fight: Shetty married his wife, Radhi, three years ago (he met her in a meditation class before he went off and became a monk). He says they’ve had to learn to respect each other’s “fighting styles” – he’s a talk it-out-immediately person, while she needs space to think. “When you’re having an argument, remember, it’s not you against each other. It’s both of you against the problem. When you win, they lose. If you’re on a team you have to win together.”
What are the GCSE grade equivalents?
- Grade 9 = above an A*
- Grade 8 = between grades A* and A
- Grade 7 = grade A
- Grade 6 = just above a grade B
- Grade 5 = between grades B and C
- Grade 4 = grade C
- Grade 3 = between grades D and E
- Grade 2 = between grades E and F
- Grade 1 = between grades F and G
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
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Polarised public
31% in UK say BBC is biased to left-wing views
19% in UK say BBC is biased to right-wing views
19% in UK say BBC is not biased at all
Source: YouGov
David Haye record
Total fights: 32
Wins: 28
Wins by KO: 26
Losses: 4
More from Aya Iskandarani
SPECS
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MATCH INFO
Inter Milan v Juventus
Saturday, 10.45pm (UAE)
Watch the match on BeIN Sports
Cryopreservation: A timeline
- Keyhole surgery under general anaesthetic
- Ovarian tissue surgically removed
- Tissue processed in a high-tech facility
- Tissue re-implanted at a time of the patient’s choosing
- Full hormone production regained within 4-6 months
Ain Issa camp:
- Established in 2016
- Houses 13,309 people, 2,092 families, 62 per cent children
- Of the adult population, 49 per cent men, 51 per cent women (not including foreigners annexe)
- Most from Deir Ezzor and Raqqa
- 950 foreigners linked to ISIS and their families
- NGO Blumont runs camp management for the UN
- One of the nine official (UN recognised) camps in the region
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylturbo
Transmission: seven-speed DSG automatic
Power: 242bhp
Torque: 370Nm
Price: Dh136,814
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Pad Man
Dir: R Balki
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Sonam Kapoor, Radhika Apte
Three-and-a-half stars
The specs: 2018 Nissan Altima
Price, base / as tested: Dh78,000 / Dh97,650
Engine: 2.5-litre in-line four-cylinder
Power: 182hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque: 244Nm @ 4,000rpm
Transmission: Continuously variable tranmission
Fuel consumption, combined: 7.6L / 100km
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cyl, 48V hybrid
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 325bhp
Torque: 450Nm
Price: Dh359,000
On sale: now
PROFILE OF HALAN
Started: November 2017
Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport and logistics
Size: 150 employees
Investment: approximately $8 million
Investors include: Singapore’s Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypt’s Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar
New UK refugee system
- A new “core protection” for refugees moving from permanent to a more basic, temporary protection
- Shortened leave to remain - refugees will receive 30 months instead of five years
- A longer path to settlement with no indefinite settled status until a refugee has spent 20 years in Britain
- To encourage refugees to integrate the government will encourage them to out of the core protection route wherever possible.
- Under core protection there will be no automatic right to family reunion
- Refugees will have a reduced right to public funds
Fireball
Moscow claimed it hit the largest military fuel storage facility in Ukraine, triggering a huge fireball at the site.
A plume of black smoke rose from a fuel storage facility in the village of Kalynivka outside Kyiv on Friday after Russia said it had destroyed the military site with Kalibr cruise missiles.
"On the evening of March 24, Kalibr high-precision sea-based cruise missiles attacked a fuel base in the village of Kalynivka near Kyiv," the Russian defence ministry said in a statement.
Ukraine confirmed the strike, saying the village some 40 kilometres south-west of Kyiv was targeted.
