National Law University invites Rajiv Gandhi assassination convict for lecture, cancels event after outcry
The National Law University of Delhi has cancelled due to the criticism faced online questioning the decision to give a platform to a man - A.G. Perarivalan - who was involved in the assassination of a PM.
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New Delhi, Dec 17: In an unusual development, the National Law University of Delhi has cancelled a planned talk by A.G. Perarivalan, who was convicted in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and released from jail in May this year. The event was cancelled due to the criticism faced online questioning the decision to give a platform to a man who was involved in the assassination of a PM.
Organized by Project 39A, a research wing within the university that studies legal aid, torture, forensics, mental health in prisons, and the death penalty, as its annual lecture, it said that the talk was being cancelled due to “unforeseen circumstances”.
Earlier, Project 39A had announced that the talk would be held online instead of in Chennai’s Asian College of Journalism as planned, because of “serious threats of vandalism and violence to the venue over our choice of speaker”. In the statement announcing this change, Project 39A said that Perarivalan would be talking about “his experience searching for justice through 31 years of imprisonment".
The National Law University in Delhi runs a project named Project 39A that had organised a lecture at Asian College of Journalism in Chennai for its 5th Annual Lecture Series. The lecture titled “The Denial of Justice and a Quest Unfinished” was to be delivered by LTTE terrorist AG Perarivalan who was convicted for his involvement in former PM Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination.
However, this announcement received a lot of criticism as many wondered why a government law university would invite a political assassin to talk about the judiciary.
When he was freed by the Supreme Court despite the fact that he was convicted, it had encouraged the media to portray him as a hero and misreport that he was set free because he was convicted wrongly. It should be noted that Perarivalan and his co-convicts found “freedom” only because they were high-profile political convicts with political parties interested in vote bank politics.
Bharati Web
Mes, Pune
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