Nalini goes on hunger strike after jail staff ‘ maltreat’ her

Alleged ill-treatment at the hands of prison staff has forced Nalini Sriharan, serving a life term in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, to go on an indefinite hunger strike in the high-security Vellore Central Prison near Chennai.

“She has been on a fast for the past five days to protest against the way jail authorities were treating her,” her advocate Pughazhenthi said after he visited her on Monday. “She began her fast early last Friday,” he added.

The “maltreatment” began after the Madras High Court directed the Tamil Nadu government to pay Rs 50,000 to 55-year-old Sharada, Nalini’s fellow prisoner.

She was attacked by three warders and stripped over a monetary row. The court also ordered that disciplinary action should be taken against the three.

Nalini, who had witnessed the attack inside the prison, was instrumental in filing the case and securing justice for her hapless fellow prisoner.

Nalini narrated the incident to her advocate when he visited her on January 5.

Pughazhenthi, who also runs an NGO for prisoners’ rights, promptly filed a habeas corpus petition in the court.

Ever since the court pronounced the judgement in the case, Nalini has been allegedly subjected to humiliation and torture.

“She is being abused in filthy language,” he said. “The jail employees are venting their anger for being hauled up by the court.” Nalini’s good-Samaritan act has come to light a year after Priyanka Vadra met her in the prison in April 2008. Priyanka’s Mission Vellore had raised the hopes of Nalini’s early release.

She has been in jail since 1991, shortly after the May 21 assassination of the former Prime Minister, and is one of the women convicts to have served the longest life terms in the country.

Nalini’s daughter, Haridra aka Meghara — who is now 16 years old and lives in the United Kingdom — was born during the incarceration. While eulogising Rajiv as a great leader, Nalini recently claimed the “real killers” of the former prime minister were still at large.

Along with others convicted in the assasination case, Nalini’s hopes of a premature release suffered a setback with the Tamil Nadu government opposing their pleas in the Madras High Court. Nalini had moved the court twice for release, but could not succeed.

Vellore Central Prison authorities denied Nalini was on a protest fast.

Nalini was sentenced to death by a special court for her involvement in Rajiv’s assassination at Sriperumbudur near Chennai on May 21, 1991. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after Sonia Gandhi petitioned for clemency for the sake of Nalini’s daughter.

Nalini, an Indian, had accompanied the Sri Lankan woman suicide bomber who blew up Rajiv with hidden explosives.

Nalini was a close friend of an LTTE operative, Murugan, who is also an accused in the case.