India Condemns 26 In Gandhi Murder

Thu., Jan. 29, 1998

Associated Press

A mammoth conspiracy trial ended with convictions Wednesday for all 26 people tried in the 1991 suicide bombing that killed former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the political heir of India’s Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. All 26 were ordered hanged.

“The nation stands vindicated,” declared D.R. Karthikeyan, the federal police officer who led the investigation.

Tamil Tiger rebels from neighboring Sri Lanka assassinated Gandhi for allegedly betraying them by brokering a peace accord with the Sri Lanka government in 1987.

Gandhi, the son and grandson of India’s prime ministers, was campaigning for his Congress Party in southern India on May 21, 1991, when a woman handed him flowers, then detonated a pound of plastic explosives strapped to her body.

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India Condemns 26 In Gandhi Murder

Jesse Tinsley

Jim Meehan

Molly Quinn

Rob Curley

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