Congress leaders G.K. Moopanar (second from left) and Jayanti Natarajan break down as they recognise Rajiv Gandhi's mutilated body Congress leaders G.K. Moopanar (second from left) and Jayanti Natarajan break down as they recognise Rajiv Gandhi's mutilated body

The trade-off with Rajiv Gandhi's life was made the moment the last clasp on the belt was fastened. Short, stout, dark and bespectacled, the woman, somewhere in her mid-30s, would have mingled indistinguishably in any Tamil election crowd but for one incongruity: she wore a. But so many Tamil women have discarded the sari for the more practical northern dress, particularly in Madras.

So, a mere 50 km away, the police were not about to get unduly perturbed by the sight of a nondescript woman just because she was clad in salwar-kameez.

Many wailed, some prayed, but for the first hour or so total confusion reigned.



A mere 12 hours later, with no more than two dismembered legs, a severed head, bits of a denim-and-velcro belt, fragments of a detonating switch and battery as clues, some of the country's top investigators, forensic scientists and explosives experts were struggling to piece together the rest of the jigsaw, the key to which lay in the identity of the dead assassin.

Late last fortnight the police arrested Vasanthi, a Sri Lankan woman, at Cuddalore suspected to be an accomplice.

The alleged assassin (centre) with Kokila and Latha The alleged assassin (centre) with Kokila and Latha

The human bomb has taken a toll this country, and indeed history, will never be able to forget. In a ghastly heap that looked like a stage act in which a score of characters somehow decided to topple backwards and lie quietly, in peace, lay spattered with blood the body of the 46-year-old, his relentless fight for his lost inheritance over so cruelly.

Keeping him company in his final journey was Sub-Inspector Pradip Gupta of the Delhi Police who, only three weeks ago, had proudly told India Today at Calcutta that he was aware that Rajiv was being careless with security but "we are careful. If something happened to Rajivji, it will only be over my dead body".

There were 16 others: Mohammed Iqbal, the police superintendent of Chengleput district, and sundry Congressmen and women, their blood and entrails scattered along with the garlands they happened to be holding only moments ago.

Kokila hugs Rajiv Gandhi while alleged assassin waits. Kokila hugs Rajiv Gandhi while alleged assassin waits.

Maragatham Chandrasekhar, veteran Congress(I) leader and local candidate, too was lying unconscious. She is now in hospital recovering from neurogenic shock. Arasu Nachiappan, PA to the TNCC(I) chief, was eagerly waiting, holding the shawl he was to present to Rajiv. "I was waiting for him to reach the dais. Suddenly there was this explosion. Two big chunks of flesh fell on the shawl." Nachiappan panicked. Screamed. Then ran. So did many others. The policemen, scores of them, disappeared for the moment, in shock and fearing there could be more explosives. Those who recovered prayed that Rajiv had perhaps crossed the danger area before the explosion.

The alleged assassin garlanding Rajiv Gandhi and then triggering The alleged assassin garlanding Rajiv Gandhi and then triggering

But the painfully-contorted body clad in white, the familiar but bloodied balding pate and the Lotto sneakers left no doubts that the front-runner in the 1991 election campaign had been stopped so rudely in his tracks.

On this day the gods in this temple town, the birthplace of the 11th century scholar-saint Ramanuja, were in no mood to answer any prayers. Congress(I) leaders Jayanti Natarajan and G.K. Moopanar were the first to recognise him.

Explosive belt while bending to touch his feet Explosive belt while bending to touch his feet

A police officer, and then Moopanar, bent to feel for life in the body. And then froze, looking at the state it was in. "Wherever you touched it you got flesh and blood on your hands," Moopanar recalls.

Suicide attacks had been nothing new for the Sri Lankan militants and most Indian soldiers returning from the tour of duty in Sri Lanka had brought back horrifying stories: LTTE boys flinging themselves in front of vehicles with mines tied to their chests and ramming dinghies loaded with explosives into the army's boats. But that happened far away, in a different land. This, 50 km from Madras, was unimaginable.

Rajiv Gandhi's body lies in a mangled heap Rajiv Gandhi's body lies in a mangled heap

For the first half-an-hour or so, total confusion reigned on the spot. By the time the police recovered their composure, the accomplices, if any, would have had ample time to flee and hide either in the ample bosom of metropolitan Madras or to the coast and then across the Palk Straits to the safety of Jaffna. Even the driver of the car in which Rajiv had driven from Madras fled from the scene.

Congress(I) leaders, including Moopanar and Jayanti Natarajan, broke down. Rajiv's aide and friend Suman Dubey, ashen-faced yet in control of himself, was the first to recover and find out that it was all over.

The body, or what remained of it, was picked up and loaded on the waiting police van which sped towards Madras. The small bands of policemen routinely patrolling the streets watched in amazement as the city came to life and then seemed to go crazy with ambulances and police sirens wailing incessantly and cars with red lights zipping up and down.

The suspect's reconstructed body with torso missing The suspect's reconstructed body with torso missing

Nearly 2,000 km away army jawans manning Brassey Avenue leading to the Rashtrapati Bhavan too were shaken rudely by the oncoming procession of VIP vehicles. Parking area was soon crawling with white Ambassadors as the nation's top bureaucrats headed for the crisis management room of the Cabinet Secretariat.

At 10.50 p.m., Union Home Secretary R.K. Bhargava came home from dinner to the incessant ringing of his phone. The caller, a Home Ministry official, informed him of the reports of the bomb blast. Exactly at the same time Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, who was in Orissa, and the Union Minister of State for Home Subodh Kant Sahay in Ranchi was informed.

Around midnight when the cabinet secretary was summoned to Rashtrapati Bhavan, a decision was already taken to call in the army. The control room at the Ministry for Home Affairs was manned by a joint secretary, who was instructed to ring up all the state chief secretaries individually and ask them to put security forces on red alert.

Delhi, which became the epicentre of the '84 mayhem, was given special attention by the chief of army staff himself.

Click here to Enlarge Distance from car park to stage 100 metres. Distance from site of blast to stage 20 metres. Area of destruction 20 sq metres

Twenty army columns were deployed immediately, backed up by an additional 25 companies of paramilitary forces. As reports came in suggesting an LTTE link, security was especially beefed up in the Western Extension Area in Karol Bagh where a substantial Tamil population lives.

The officials worked on a simple resolve: one failure of 1984, of VIP security, had been repeated. The second, of law and order, would not be. As the capital began waking up to a numbing tragedy, the reassuring drone of Shaktiman trucks could already be heard on the roads, with jawans, rifles levelled, sobering passions.

As dawn broke there was a flurry of activity at the CBI headquarters located in the new Central Government Offices complex next to the capital's showpiece Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. CBI Director-General Vijay Karan, a former high-profile commissioner of Delhi Police was scanning the records of available officers to hand-pick a team of investigators.

But even as the CBI team began packing its bags for Madras, the Tamil Nadu Police, and a team of the forensic experts, led by P. Chandrasekharan, director of the Forensic Science Laboratory in Madras, were mopping up vital clues.

The Final Countdown

8.30 p.m: Rajiv lands at Madras and meets the press in an overcrowded room devoid of security.

9.15 p.m: Stops at Kathipara junction to garland Jawaharlal Nehru's statue.

9.30 p.m: Addresses a chaotic, unscheduled meeting with 100-odd people jostling him.

10.10 p.m: Reaches Sriperumbudur, stops to garland Indira Gandhi's statue. Suman Dubey objects to the unscheduled stop but is waved away.

10.20 p.m: Alights from car and takes last walk.

One of these lay in the stinking mortuary at the hospital in the silk town of Kancheepuram, floating grotesquely in a giant tub of formaldehyde, the foul-smelling chemical often used to preserve animal specimens kept in jars in museums. Two hefty legs, severed from the upper thigh region and a severed head.

The first indications of where the bomb may have been came from a look at these lifeless pieces of flesh. And it is mainly on the basis of these indications that Chandrasekharan dispels all other theories. "She was the killer assassin carrying a belt-type of device," he says pointing to tell-tale pieces of evidence:

This is the only body left unclaimed, unidentified so far.

This is the only body blown to pieces while none of the others have been dismembered, indicating that it bore the explosive device. And the fact that no shreds of the torso have been found indicates that the bomb was carried on that region.

The scalp has been ripped forwards by the explosion and hangs in front of the face, indicating that the explosive may have been strapped to the back.

Other forensic clues, pieces of belt, battery and the switch also buttress the belt-bomb theory.

But alternative theories, including the one that the bomb could have been brought in a bouquet handed over to Rajiv by another woman who may have got away seconds before the explosion, have not yet been totally discarded. There are, however, two factors against this theory.

One, that the police had indeed checked the bouquets with metal detectors and there is no way that one containing so many thousands of steel pellets could have got through. This has been corroborated by eyewitness K. Sulaiman, Congress(I) leader of Sriperumbudur, who was in charge of the dais arrangements. He says he himself saw bouquets being screened with hand-held metal detectors.

A Cruel Irony

Mrs Gandhi and Rajiv's flirtation and subsequent involvement with the Tamil separatist movement in Sri Lanka has proven a fatal one. It saw the arming and training of Eelam fighters give way to an agreement with the Government of Sri Lanka which had the Indian Peace Keeping Force locked in a bloody combat with the Tamil Tigers. Friends became foes; allies, adversaries; and those trained under Mrs Gandhi's diktats became Rajiv's assassins. A similarly cruel irony had seen Mrs Gandhi devoured by the very extremist forces she had helped to unleash in Punjab.



The third possibility, of an explosive kept on the ground or hidden in a flowerpot, is negated by the nature of injuries - all above the waist - and the absence of any crater or burn marks on the ground.

Even if the assassin had used a bouncing-betty kind of mine, which jumps upwards and explodes, fragments would definitely have been found on the spot.

Chandrasekharan's team has concluded that the device contained a plastic explosive widely used by demolition squads in military forces all over the world, known to be of the C1, C2, C3 composition. Its major constituent is a highly malleable, putty-like chemical known as RDX (Cyclotrimethylene Trinitramine).

An expert described it as "a little like atta, kneaded wheat flour". This would facilitate moulding the charge in any form or shape, besides the burying of the thousands of steel pellets which became the killing shrapnel flying at 5,000 metres per second - 18,000 km per hour - under explosive impact. This is called the Claymore effect as each pellet becomes a killer bullet.

People search for relatives among the bodies flung backwards by the explosion People search for relatives among the bodies flung backwards by the explosion

In this kind of explosive device the killing effect is provided not by the explosion or fire but the shrapnel.

Explosive used was black RDX which differs from the yellow RDX often used by the security agencies in India.

They are also trying to find out if it was a shaped charge, designed to direct the maximum impact at Rajiv.

The scattering of the bodies testified to the limited explosive, but great killing power of the bomb.



Chandrasekharan says it was "a high explosive capable of throwing missiles in all directions". Which is exactly what happened as the woman, if Chandrasekharan is right, bent forward on the pretext of touching Rajiv's feet and detonated the bomb by pressing the switch somewhere on her belly.

The tiny, 2-mm pellets turned into thousands of killer bullets, ripping apart the top-front portions of the bodies of people in the first circle around Rajiv.

The device was rigged in such a way as to provide the maximum killing power with the minimum possible explosive as is evident from the fact that even the bamboo barricade next to the killing ground is intact.

A Brutal Blow

The bomb which burst at close range mauled Rajiv Gandhi's body most brutally. The top half of the front of his body bore the brunt of the explosion, leaving his back and legs intact. All that remained of his smiling visage was the right side, a bit of the nose and the right ear. The powerful explosion that plastered him to the ground, face downwards, broke his skull and his brain fell out to rest on the leg of his personal security officer, P.K. Gupta who was also killed in the blast. Rajiv's liver, kidneys and intestines too were blown by the impact. Lying in the midst of other bodies, it took his associates a while to recognise him - the bald patch on his head and his white Lotto sneakers the only visible signs of the man who barely minutes earlier was being garlanded by a line of party functionaries. Confusion reigned as a stretcher was hurriedly organised and bits and pieces of the body lifted onto it, the brain dangling out of the head. The body was sutured into shape at the Government General Hospital at Madras. At New Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where the body was brought soon after the special Indian Air Force plane touched down at Palam Airport, the doctors tried unsuccessfully to reconstruct his face with the help of plaster of Paris but finally left it padded with cotton-wool and bandages. After embalming, the body was covered with the tricolour and taken first to Rajiv's residence at 10, Janpath and then to Teen Murti Bhavan, where it lay in state on a bed of ice for two days before it was cremated on May 24.



The handiwork, obviously, of someone who knows his business. The middle of the waist-belt has been ripped apart by the explosion, though at the ends the clasps were intact.

Bits of the belt were found attached to the body of the woman believed to be that of the assassin. A major portion of the orange and green salwar-kameez she was wearing was also found sticking to the belt.

A senior forensic expert confirms that the team has established that the device was triggered off by a twin electrical switch - one to arm the device and activate the explosive and the other to set it off.

Forensic experts are now piecing together the bits of the belt and vest worn by the suspected assassin. The electrical wiring and switches were concealed in the velcro lining of the belt. A battery cell of foreign make was also recovered at the site.

The device was a made-to-order one and its mechanism is believed to have some resemblance to the one that killed Sri Lankan defence minister Ranjan Wijeratne in February, though that was exploded through a remote-controlled device.

"The whole thing seems to resemble the well-known LTTE tactics. We have offered all help in the investigation," Sri Lankan Government's foreign policy advisor Bradman Weerakoon said.

LTTE denials are of little value and the claim that the LTTE had opened a channel of communication with Rajiv (denied by Congress(I) spokesman Pranab Mukherjee) recently is tempered by the fact that they killed TULF MP Amirthalingam within days of having visited his house for fairly amiable talks.

Madras-based newsmen have often been told by the LTTE that the "Tamils will never forgive Rajiv for what he did to them".

"People started running. I saw the scattered bodies. Pradip Gupta was alive. He looked at us, murmured something, and passed away. As if he was waiting for someone familiar to take charge of Rajiv's body. I tried to lift his head, but only got hold of flesh and blood. It was all over. I covered him with a towel."

G.K. Moopanar Congress(I) Leader

"Suddenly it looked like crackers were being burst where Rajiv was. When I turned I saw people fall apart in slow motion. Hoping against hope I rushed to the dais. I was looking for white as Rajiv wears white. Most of what I saw was black, charred stuff and I kept searching. How long, I don't remember."

Suman Dubey Rajiv's Aide

"All officers just ran away. I looked at the bodies, hoping not to find him. Pradip Gupta lay on his back. His eyes open, he was still breathing and looked at me. 'Are you alright?' I asked. He died within seconds. Then I saw a head lying on his knee. And I said to myself, 'Oh my God, this looks like Rajiv'."

Jayanti Natarajan Congress(I) MP



They would have had anxieties about his return. But there are still vital questions as to what the LTTE stood to gain from murdering Rajiv long after the IPKF episode had been consigned to history books.

A well-organised group of veterans of wars against two regular armies, the Tigers are hardly likely to kill India's most prominent leader merely out of pique, or old vengeance.

Again, assassination of a national leader particularly one so popular in the south could be self-destructive for the LTTE, inviting a nemesis they could do without.

The possibility of the assassin being someone nursing personal vengeance, probably the death of a family member in the IPKF operations, is also being looked into.

Whether or not the LTTE was involved, a Sri Lanka connection of sorts is evident. On the basis of a video film of the last moments before the explosion, the two women, S. Gokila and Latha Kannan, flanking the suspected human bomb have been identified.

The two also died and are believed to have been known to the family of Maragatham Chandrasekhar whose son Vijay is married to a Sri Lankan - the family denies that it knew them.

Investigators are checking on two vital bits of information: that the alleged assassin was seen at Maragatham's place and that Gokila had bought a salwar-kameez of colours similar to the one worn by the assassin a day earlier at an Egmore boutique "to gift it to a Sri Lankan friend".

The spot near the stage where Rajiv Gandhi was killed The spot near the stage where Rajiv Gandhi was killed

The device packed tremendous killing power.



But for the Indira Gandhi statue, painted from head to toe in garish silver of the kind seen on electricity poles, Sriperumbudur is not a stop many would even notice on the drive along National Highway 4 connecting Madras with Bangalore. It is also far from the coast and thus an unlikely hideout for the LTTE.

The police say the group was active in the area and the local people remember seeing Sri Lankan refugees once in a while. Many shopkeepers say that Sri Lankans claiming to be refugees came to the town frequently, going from shop to shop asking for money.

The last time the shopkeepers saw "Jaffna women" was five days before the assassination. Officials in Madras say the police are also looking into the reports that three Sri Lankan Tamil women escaped a week ago from a loosely-guarded camp at Red Hill, barely a 90-minute drive from Sriperumbudur.

Other possibilities are being considered as well. The investigators have taken note of the fact that the kind of RDX used in the explosive - black, and not yellow which is commonly used in India - has only been seen in cases involving Sikh terrorists.

"I had just interviewed Rajiv in his car. I heard the crackers in the distance. Suddenly there was a pit-pit kind of sound, as if something was burning reluctantly and then a big bang. Barbara Crossette (of The New York Times) and I rushed out and were driven to Madras in the very car Rajiv had been riding in."

Neena Gopal Gulf News Correspondent "All of a sudden I heard a blast. There was a flame and suffocating smoke. I was thrown off balance and four bodies fell on me. I tried desperately but could not wriggle out because I was bleeding profusely. It looked like a battlefield around me, strewn with bodies and people groaning and writhing."

D. Pandian UCPI's North Madras candidate

"I was to shower flowers on Rajiv. But as I got close Maragatham pushed me away. My sister Saroja was still there. Then came the loud bang. I was hit in the thighs by steel pellets. But I managed to go close to the dais and found my sister dead. I lay there till 4.30 a.m., but no one came to help."

K. Shanta Kumari Mahila Congress(I) Leader



For example, Gobind Ram, the former SP of Gurdaspur, was blown up with a device containing black RDX. ''This is an open-ended investigation.

No one is being excluded, but the Sri Lankan Tamil groups are prime suspects," says the official. Having sorted out the initial bickering and inter-service hassles vis-a-vis the state police, the 25-member inquiry team including forensic and explosive experts has got down to serious business.

They are visiting Sri Lankan Tamil refugee camps with pictures of the suspects, several people living in Maragatham Chandrasekhar's neighbourhood have been questioned and soon the Government is likely to make a formal approach to the Sri Lankan Government for cooperation.

More than anything else, the case presents an enormous challenge for the forensic scientists who, though experienced and intelligent, will be handicapped by the non-availability of the kind of facilities available in the West.

If a similar incident had happened there, forensic experts by now would have been rigging up similar explosive devices and blowing them up in the face of man-sized mock-ups of Rajiv and others to test out the various theories propounded. Techniques of tissue-matching could also have helped put together bodies.

Here, forensic scientists have had to work on bodies which weren't even kept under refrigeration simply because the mortuary in Kancheepuram had no such facility. An expert likened this to investigating a 21st century crime with 19th century facilities. While investigators chase the leads, the tragedy will make yet another lasting impression on the life of public men in India.

The complacent feeling, that terrorism threatened them only in Punjab, Kashmir, and maybe Assam, is now a thing of the past. Sriperumbudur is evidence enough that no part of the country can now be reckoned safe from terrorism, the most sinister growth industry in the world.