Courtesy The Hindustan Times

Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991, at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu by a woman suicide bomber while at a poll rally.

Nalini Sriharan – one of six convicted of the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and whom the Supreme Court released from a prison in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore last week – has appealed to the centre and state to release four Sri Lankan nationals – including her husband V Sriharan.

All four are being held at a special refugee camp in Tiruchirappalli – even after being formally released from jail – as they were in India illegally.

“I cannot meet my husband yet… so not happy at present. I request Tamil Nadu government to take necessary action to release him as soon as possible.”

On her time behind bars she said ‘some people oppose(d) our release’ and that ‘we (were) treated like death convicts… even when I was two months pregnant’.

READ | ‘See us as victims, not killers’: Rajiv Gandhi killer after release from jail

“We are a Congress family. When Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were assassinated our family was sad and did not eat. I can’t accept I was named in Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. I should be free of that blame,” she said.

“We don’t know who assassinated him,” she declared.

READ | ‘Thankful to people of Tamil Nadu’: Nalini Sriharan as she leaves jail

On Sunday, she said she planned to travel to Trichy to meet her husband.

“We got married… have a child who is abroad. My daughter is excited to meet her father. Family will be my priority… My whole life is totally destroyed already, so I am going to take care of the family,” she told reporters.

Nalini Sriharan’s daughter lives in London in the United Kingdom.

Nalini Sriharan also said Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra – Rajiv Gandhi’s daughter – visited her at the Vellore Jail in 2018.

“She got emotional for her father. She cried too.”

“Other things that transpired cannot be disclosed as it pertained to Priyanka’s personal views,” Nalini Sriharan said when pressed for details.

READ | What Rajiv Gandhi convict Nalini said in Priyanka Gandhi jail meet

Nalini Sriharan and five other convicts were released last week after the Supreme Court said they had shown ‘satisfactory behaviour’. The court noted the state cabinet’s 2018 recommendation that they be freed.

The Congress was livid and called it ‘totally unacceptable and completely erroneous’ and even disagreeing with Sonia Gandhi on the topic.

READ | Cong on Rajiv’s killers’ release: ‘Sonia Gandhi entitled to views…’

Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991, at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu by a woman suicide bomber – identified as Dhanu – while at a poll rally.

The killing was largely seen as a response to his move to send Indian forces to Sri Lanka in 1987 to disarm Tamil rebels.