Know why LTTE had planned to kill Rajiv Gandhi in Delhi, had Sriperumbudur attack failed

New Delhi: The exhaustive investigation process and interrogation of key suspects picked up by SIT have established that the plot to kill former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was first hatched in October 1990 deep in the jungles of Jaffna. But years after the killing, copies of the diaries of assassination mastermind Sivarasan revealed that he also had a plan to target the former prime minister in Delhi, according to a report published in an English tabloid Mail Today. This would have been Plan B, in case one-eyed Sivarasan failed to assassinate him in Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991. Key entries in what the CBI's SIT called the 'Delhi plot' figure in the LTTE assassin's diaries. Copies of the diaries reveal how Sivarasan planned to infiltrate a travel agency in the capital. The agency is run by a distant relative of Rajiv Gandhi's close aide, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's wife Suneet. An entry in Sivarasan's diary, which was seized by the CBI from a Tiger safehouse in July 1991, notes a 'V. Kalyasundaram, President Travel Service, 811 Arunachal Building, Barakhamba Road, Connaught Place, New Delhi-11'. Enquiries with the agency revealed that Kalyanasundaram worked there as assistant manager and moved out in 2004. Kalyanasundaram, who is now settled in Chennai, denies ever having been contacted by Sivarasan or anyone related to him. K. Ragothaman, the CBI's chief investigator in the case, says the LTTE had got his contact details from Kalyanasundaram's uncle, Jagadeesan, a retired armyman who ran a rice mill in Thopputhurai. "It was a lead that the LTTE never followed up." Mani Shankar Aiyar, when contacted by India Today, denied any knowledge of the existence of such a plan and dismissed it outright. On April 28, the LTTE sent Sonia, a 17-year-old suicide bomber, to a safehouse in Chennai where she would remain in wait for Plan B. She was chosen for being light complexioned, which would allow her to merge into a crowd in New Delhi. Sivarasan had already recruited Kanagasabapathy, a retired Sri Lankan Tamil government servant for the purpose. The two-room Central government quarter, illegally sub-let by its government allottee, offered the perfect cover. It was located in a sprawl of single-storey government accommodation in the heart of the national capital. It was just eight kilometres away from Rajiv Gandhi's 10 Janpath residence. Kanagasabapathy paid Rs.5000 as advance to the broker. Sivarasan was, however, confident of assassinating the former Prime Minister in Tamil Nadu. The Delhi plot was abandoned because the Tigers were successful in Sriperumbudur.