DMK has indirect role in Rajiv killing: Jaya

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Tuesday said the DMK had an ‘indirect’’ role in the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. The reaction comes a day after a  _Firstpost-_CNN-IBN interview with K Pathmanathan, the current chief of the LTTE and its one-time arms procurer, where he revealed that LTTE chief V Prabhakaran was influenced by the anti-Brahmin ideology of the Dravida Kazhagham and later the DMK. [caption id=“attachment_14915” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=““I have been living with that death threat since 1991.’’ AFP Photo”]  [/caption] According to Pathmanathan, Prabhakaran hated Rajiv Gandhi. While a large part of this hatred emanated from the former Indian Prime Minister’s quick-fix approach towards the complex Tamil-Sinhalese conflict in Sri Lanka (which included sending in the IPKF), some of it was also the result of the DK’s ideology that Prabhakaran had imbibed. Jayalalithaa said, “That has been our basic charge since a long time. We have always said DMK was behind the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in an indirect way.” Responding to Pathmanathan’s claim that she too would have been killed had the LTTE got a chance, she said she has always lived under death threats. “I have been living with that death threat since 1991,’’ she said.