VELLORE: A pall of gloom has descended among the residents of K K Thangavel Street, behind Jolarpet railway station, and the entire locality after the people heard about the government fixing September 9 as the date for the hanging of one of their own boys, Perarivalan, one of the three men sentenced to death in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case."When someone has been imprisoned for 20 years, which is more than a life term, how could he be hanged?” asked the people, who sat on a fast near the railway station on Friday, even as they pray for a divine intervention to save Perarivalan from the gallows.With tears welling up in his eyes, Gnanasekaran, Perarivalan’s father, who was a teacher at the Government school in Jolarpet from where his son completed his 10th standard, wondered: “How would have Arivu felt when he was told about the government decision to hang him.”Gnanasekaran, who was at home on Saturday with his sister on Saturday, said that he first refused to accept the letter that was brought from the Vellore prison superintendent confirming his son’s hanging when a large number of local people, relatives and some political party leaders were on fast. He, however, accepted the letter to show it to his lawyer.Perarivalan’s aunt, Jeevarani, who had come to participate in the fast said, “My brother and his wife had spent their lives alone at home all these years. Nowadays, they lock up the house and my brother stays with his daughter. His wife is in her relative’s house in Chennai to look after the court proceedings. They have been trying for an appointment to meet J Jayalalithaa since she was sworn in as Chief Minister.Jeevarani and Gnanasekaran said that Perarivalan was innocent and pointed to the charge against him. “He was accused of buying the battery cells that were used in the belt bomb that was tied to Thanu, the woman bomber who killed Rajiv Gandhi. But the Chief Investigating Officer of the case, Ragothaman, had said in an interview to some Tamil magazines in 2005 that they did not find out who fabricated the belt.”Perarivalan had gone to Chennai with a dream of joining an engineering college after obtaining a diploma from the Government Polytechnic in Krishnagiri, which he attended after school, and was working in a printing press to support his stay in the big city. “How will my son who was brought up with such parental care moral values would ever commit a crime,” he asked.
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