The Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Gandhi's last public meeting was at Sriperumbudur on 21 May 1991, in a village approximately 30-miles from Madras, Tamil Nadu, where he was assassinated while campaigning for the Sriperumbudur Lok Sabha Congress candidate. The assassination was carried out by the LTTE suicide bomber Thenmuli Rajaratnam also known as Gayatri and Dhanu. At 10:10 p.m., the assassin Dhanu approached him in a public meeting and greeted the former Prime Minister. She then bent down to touch his feet (an expression of respect among Hindus) and detonated a belt laden with 700 grams of RDX explosive tucked below her dress. The former Prime Minister along with many others were killed in the explosion that followed. The assassination was caught on film through the lens of a local photographer, whose camera and film were found at the site. The cameraman himself also died in the blast but the camera remained intact.