'Nalini snatched the cell and threw into toilet'

The Tamil Nadu government on Thursday said the call records of mobile phone recovered from Nalini, a life convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, lodged in high security Vellore prison, would be well-analyzed before arriving at a conclusion.

Law Minister Duraimurugan told the Assembly that besides the mobile phone, two SIM cards were also received from Nalini's cell.

The mobile phone was found from a cloth bag, he said.

"When the jail authorities tried to recover the mobile phone from the bag, Nalini snatched it and threw it into a nearby toilet.

However, an official acted quickly and recovered the phone from the toilet. The instrument has now been sent for proper analysis and we can make any conclusion only after getting the details of call records", he said.

Whether Nalini made calls to foreign countries or not can be ascertained only after the analysis, he told the Assembly.

He said it was the first case of mobile phone being recovered from an inmate of the Vellore special prison for women.

The device was recovered from Nalini during a routine check on Wednesday. Nalini had recently appealed in the Madras High Court seeking premature release which the court declined on different grounds including gravity of the crime.

A division bench of the Madras High court had rejected her petition on April 6 observing that the 44-year-old Nalini had committed the crime in a cunning and meticulous manner which killed the former Prime Minister in Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991.