On this day in 1991, former Indian prime minister and Congress leader Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. 21 May 2025 marks his 34th death anniversary.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a Sri Lankan militant group, orchestrated the killing in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, using a suicide bomber. The assassination stemmed from LTTE’s resentment over Gandhi’s foreign policy decisions, particularly his deployment of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka in 1987.
Let us understand briefly how it started -
After the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984, her son, Rajiv Gandhi at the age of 40 years, was sworn in as the Prime Minister of India by President Giani Zail Singh. With this, Rajiv engraved his name as the youngest prime minister in Indian history.
In the year 1976, Velupillai Prabhakaran established LTTE to seek an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka and to resist the oppression faced by the Tamil population there. It is said that in the early stages (when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister of India) the LTTE enjoyed sympathy and support from India. During Indira's tenure as PM, Indian intelligence reportedly provided training and assistance to Tamil rebel factions, as per the media records.
After Rajiv Gandhi took the reins as the PM, the dynamics started to shift in 1987. India and Sri Lanka signed a peace accord. Under the agreement, Rajiv Gandhi deployed the Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka to disarm the LTTE and restore peace.
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Initially, the group welcomed the Indian forces, but with time, LTTE started suspecting and viewed India’s presence as unwarranted interference. Clashes soon broke out between the LTTE and Indian forces. It was after this that resentment against Rajiv Gandhi started to stem against Rajiv Gandhi. Then in 1989, the grand old party, Congress, lost power but Rajiv remained an influential figure in the opposition.
During his election campaign in 1991, in an interview, Rajiv Gandhi said that if he is re-elected, he would consider deploying Indian forces to Sri Lanka once again. This was the moment when the hatred brewed among LTTE. The group took Rajiv's statement very seriously and considered it as a direct threat.
The moment - when Rajiv was assassinated:
The meticulously planned attack occurred during an election campaign rally. A young woman, later identified as Dhanu, approached Gandhi under the guise of garlanding him. She detonated a belt bomb, killing herself, Gandhi instantly. The explosion, captured by photographers, shocked the nation and highlighted the LTTE’s ruthless tactics. Investigations revealed a network of operatives, including Sivarasan, the mastermind, who evaded capture but later died by suicide during a police raid, as per the media reports.
The aftermath saw a prolonged investigation, with India’s Central Bureau of Investigation forming a special team. The probe revealed LTTE’s comprehensive planning, involving local sympathisers as well as the logistical support they received for the assassination. Twenty-six individuals were convicted in 1998, though some were later released.
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