Investigations into Rajiv Gandhi's assassination were launched to save the vote bank

-Allegation that the Tamil Nadu government did not conduct the investigation properly

-A mystery in the autobiography written by a former police officer

New delhi date. 10 December 2020 Wednesday

A shocking allegation has been made that the Tamil Nadu state government has stepped up its probe into the assassination of then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in Chikmagalur, near Chennai, in the 1990s, despite the existence of accurate evidence.

The claim was made in a book written by a former police officer who held a key position in the Tamil Nadu police when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by the Tamil Tigers. The Tamil Nadu government did not conduct a systematic inquiry into the killings despite the evidence so that Tamil voters sympathetic to the Tamil Tigers would not slip out of hand.

Former police officer Amod Kanthe made this allegation in his book 'Khakhi in Duststorm'. Kanth himself was in the police team investigating the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. The case was investigated by the then Deputy Inspector General of CBI. He said that Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by Tamil Tiger militants on May 21, 1991 in Sriperambadur. An investigation into the assassination of another Tamil leader, Padmanabha, exactly a year before Rajiv's assassination, found evidence that the Tamil Tigers were preparing for a larger conspiracy. Padmanabha and Rajiv were killed alike.

On June 15, 1990, Padmanabha and twelve of his comrades were killed. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in exactly the same way. An eyewitness gave this information to the police but they turned a blind eye to it. "The Tamil Nadu state government did not properly investigate the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi on the assumption that Tamil voters sympathetic to the Tamil Tigers would not be offended by the 1991 Lok Sabha elections," Kanthe wrote. The state had a DMK government at the time of the Padmanabha massacre but a presidential rule was imposed later in 1991.