No Priyanka-Nalini meeting took place: Vellore women Jail official

(May 03, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Controversy broke out over Priyanka Gandhi's reported meeting with Nalini Murugan, who is serving a life-term for her role in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi at the Vellore prison, with the jail Superintendent saying that no such meeting took place.

The denial came by way of superintendent Rajasoundari's written reply to city lawyer D Rajkumar's query under the Right To Information Act (RTI) seeking details of the meeting.

"In response to your query, let me inform that on March 14, 2008 and March 19, 2008, nobody had visited the prisoner under contention," the reply said in the context of whether any meeting had taken place with Nalini.

Rajasoundari's reply was dated April 11 while Priyanka had acknowledged on April 16 that the meeting had taken place while reacting to media reports about the March 19 meeting. Priyanka said the meeting was her way of "coming to peace with violence and loss that I have experienced".

Duraisamy, Nalini's advocate, told on Friday that he had preferred an appeal to the State Information Commissioner, appointed under the RTI, alleging that the jail superintendent was trying to 'hush up' the meeting and action should be taken against the official.

However, officials at the office of the Commissioner of RTI were tightlipped on the issue. Duraiswamy also claimed that there was no entry of Priyanka's visit in the jail records and alleged he may have been under instructions.

- Sri Lanka Guardian