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November 17, 1997
COMMENTRY
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The Rediff Interview/R Nagarajan'The leaked report does not feature my testimony before the Jain panel, but before another court'
The one-time ubiquitous bureaucrat is in the news again.
Former Tamil Nadu home secretary
Also acquitted were 16 other accused in the case -- some of them also allegedly involved in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, whose verdict is expected by the end of January.
The charge against Nagarajan was that he had instructed the state police not to
chase Padmanabha's killers. He also appeared before
the Jain Commission inquiring into the Rajiv Gandhi assassination
conspiracy.
In an exclusive interview to How do you read the Jain Commission's findings? We have not seen the full report, and whatever has been leaked seems incomplete and selective. Speaking only for myself, my affidavit with annexes runs into 300 pages, enlisting the various measures taken by the government of the day to check the LTTE's activities. This does not seem to find a place at least in the leaked portions of the report. What seem to have been taken are portions of my statement to a Tiruchi magistrate in another case. What was your connection in the Padmanabha case? Nothing as an accused, and the court has vindicated my stand. If anything, as the home secretary of the day, I got six men apprehended for the killing. But five of them were enlarged on bail and the sixth one escaped from prison under the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham regime. All the accused, including me, were arraigned much later. Even when the AIADMK was in power, two senior police officers of the inspector general of police and the deputy inspector general of police rank told the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act court that no such instructions had been given for letting off the Padmanabha killers as alleged. Besides, no other proof was produced by the prosecution to prove that the DMK government had given such instructions. That being the case, I do not know under what circumstances the Jain Commission has used the charge made against me, and consequently then chief minister Karunanidhi in the Padmanabha killing, to establish a DMK-LTTE link. You mean to say that you were unnecessarily harassed? Yes, and you cannot blame me if I draw such conclusions. I have nothing against then chief minister Jayalalitha whom I have not met even once on a one-to-one basis. But the government, which she headed, did harass me. Like...? My voluntary retirement application was not processed for over a year, and when it was finally cleared, it was just two days before my retirement, denying full retirement benefits. Then I was arrested in a frivolous and obviously fabricated case... You mean the Padmanabha case? No, that came later. I was arrested in a case where a Sri Lankan Tamil, nabbed with a bicycle at a level-crossing near Tiruchi, said that the gelatine he was carrying had been sent by the home secretary to the LTTE. He did not even give my name. I was arrested under TADA in that case, and it was there I made a statement as a witness which has been cited in parts by the Jain Commission. Incidentally, that 'gelatine case' itself did not proceed beyond the first information report stage. The Padmanabha case followed. As the then home secretary, what do you have to say about the intelligence reports linking the LTTE to the DMK, based on which then prime minister Chandra Shekhar dismissed the DMK regime in the state? If any such reports existed, it did not come to our knowledge or view. Anyway, it would have been only in the fitness of things that the Jain Commission also summoned the authors of those intelligence reports, just as other bureaucrats of the day, including me. At least I do not know whether any of them were summoned. Incidentally, even those who spoke of such alleged links and the existence of such reports, only cited unconfirmed sources and unnamed partymen when they appeared before the Jain Commission. That includes senior politicians like P Chidambaram and then state Congress chief Vazhappadi K Ramamurthy. Likewise, while some of the witnesses deposed in public, some others were heard in-camera, denying others a chance to know what was said, not to mention the right to cross-examine, where needed. If you were harassed... Why? Possibly, the rulers of the day presumed that I was close to Karunanidhi. Anyway, they had come to power campaigning on the DMK-LTTE link that they had alleged. Once in power, they were expected to prove the earlier charge. Former DMK minister Subbulakshmi Jagadheesan and her husband provided the political face of the conspiracy in the Padmanabha case. So did Ravichandran, brother of MDMK founder V Gopalswamy, who was then in the DMK. I became the bureaucratic scapegoat, providing the much-needed governmental angle. All of us have been acquitted. It is not a case of benefit of doubt going to the accused. What about the days following Karunanidhi's dismissal in 1991? Did the state administration under President's rule follow up on the charges earlier made on the LTTE front? If anything, the weekly coordination meetings with the Navy and the Coast Guard were not held after the dismissal.
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