July 3, 2013, 12:00 pm


By S Venkat Narayan Our Special Correspondent


NEW DELHI, July 3: A former Tamil Nadu police inspector who was part of the crack Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team that probed Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991 is now seeking further investigation into the role played by Kumaran Pathmanathan, or KP, the former arms procurer of the LTTE.


J Mohanraj, a CBI inspector who took voluntary retirement in 1997, approached the Madras High Court on Tuesday with a petition to this effect.


The Bench hearing the case admitted the petition and ordered that notices be issued to the Central Government, to be responded by August 5.


Mohanraj petitioned the court to question KP, the former chief arms procurer of the LTTE rebels, on the conspiracy behind the assassination that is still being investigated by the Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) headed by the CBI, comprising IB, RAW and Revenue Intelligence.


There was an allegation that the explosives used in the assassination were sent to Chennai from Singapore by KP. The Jain Commission that probed the killing had said in its report that KP had prior knowledge of the plot. But the CBI did not make any effort to arrest and question him, said Mohanraj.


After KP’s arrest by Sri Lankan government in 2009, the cases against him were repealed and he is a free man in Sri Lanka now, he added.


Gandhi was killed by Dhanu, an LTTE woman suicide-bomber, at an election rally at Sriperambathur near Chennai on the night of 21 May 1991.


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