Rajiv killing: Convict's daughter seeks clemency

The 20-year-old daughter of Nalini and Murugan, who were convicted in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, wants to come to India and campaign for clemency for her father who is on death row.

A student of biomedicine in a Glasgow University, Harithra says she discussed the case with her parents at the age of 14, when she first met them, and has read the case files.

"They wanted me to believe that they are innocent. I do believe now from what he (Murugan) told me and after I read the case files," she said.

"I could see it from the confessional statement.... It was a lie they made up, a lie both of them spoke, both of them decided. I am not talking like a daughter but someone who reads them will say so," she said.

Harithra in her first meeting with her parents had asked them many questions related to the killing, she said, adding, "I was angry and disappointed and needed answers."

She said Murgan replied that my mother knew that she was pregnant at the time of the incident. "You think any human having a one-month-old unborn baby would go to the do such an act -- a bomb explosion," Harirthra recalled Murugan's words.

The Madras high court recently suspended for eight weeks the execution of Murugan, Santhan, and Perarivalan --convicted in Rajiv Gandhi's killing in 1991 in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu.

After almost nine years of the killing, Nalini's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on the intervention of Congress president and Rajiv Gandhi's wife Sonia Gandhi.

"I am interested in meeting Sonia Gandhi and thanking her for commuting my mom's sentence. I wish to plead to her to consider my father's case," she said, adding she has applied for visa to visit India, where she was born in a prison.