Bangalore, May 19 (Deccan Chronicle): Twenty years after the assassination of former PM Rajiv Gandhi on May 21, 1991, at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu by Dhanu, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s female assassin, a new controversy has thrown a shadow on the critical operation by the Special Investigating Team, raising serious questions on the protocol that allegedly aborted the arrest of the killer LTTE duo — Shubha and Sivarasan by the City police.

The duo along with six other LTTE cadres were found dead - they had committed suicide by consuming cyanide — by the SIT commando team and the City police in a house in Konankunte in suburban Bengaluru in the early hours of August 20, 1991, a day after they were tracked and put under ‘house arrest’ by the City police.

Retired IPS officer of Karnataka cadre, Kempaiah, who had led the raid on the house where Shubha and Sivarasan along with six other LTTE members were holed up, told Deccan Chronicle that he still “regrets” they could not arrest the duo alive.

“I am 100 per cent sure that we would have caught Shubha and Sivarasan alive had we raided the house on August 19. We were mentally ready. Our plan was to send in Halina Muniyamma — the woman, from whom the LTTE members would buy milk every day inside the house. And once the inmates opened the door, we would have entered the house and arrested them without giving them a chance to bite the cyanide capsule.

“The police had covered the house from all sides but even the neighbours didn’t know about it and there was no media attention. We had ensured complete secrecy of the operation,” said Kempaiah.

“But minutes before we decided to conduct the raid I called the then City Commissioner Ramalingam, who asked me to wait for the SIT chief Karthikeyan,” said Kempaiah.

He added that Karthikeyan, who rushed to Bengaluru decided to inform the then director of the Central Bureau of Investigation — Vijay Karan, who arrived in the City at 4pm the same day and asked us to wait for the anti-cyanide team from Lucknow.

“The operation was halted that evening. Next morning at 3am the team from Lucknow arrived and we were given a go ahead. But by then people and media had got the wind of the operation and thousands of people crowded the place, which put Shubha and Sivarasan on alert and they opened fire from inside the house in the evening. When we finally broke open the door in the early hours of the next morning we only found their bodies; they had consumed cyanide the previous night,” said the retired cop.

Kempaiah added that Shubha and Sivarasan were dressed in black clothes and had reportedly planned to escape in the night but because of the police cover, they could not do so.

Claim refuted

Karthikeyan, when contacted, debunked Kempaiah’s assumption that they could have caught the LTTE cadres alive.

“The local police would have not been able to catch them alive. Even if they had broken inside the house they would have killed the LTTE members. Anybody, who knows a little about the LTTE, should be aware that getting them alive was an impossible task. They believed in getting killed than being caught alive.”

Slip found

A slip with the name ‘Puttenhalli Anjenappa’ found on one of the dead LTTE cadres in a police crackdown in Muttati, Mandya district on August 17,’91 gave vital clues to the cops regarding the whereabouts of Shubha and Sivarasan.

Anjenappa, a retired bank employee who was arrested by the police turned out to be the brother of Ashwathnarayana, a Congress candidate from Nelamangala. Anjenappa’s tenant Ranganath was responsible for providing rental accommodation to the LTTE killers in the city.