Tamil Nadu: Truth and justice on my side, says A G Perarivalan

JOLARPET: A G Perarivalan on Wednesday said truth and justice were on his side and it gave him strength during his three-decade-long incarceration.
Soon after the Supreme Court ordered his release, Perarivalan said Tamils across the world extended support to him, showered him with love and saw him as one of the members of their families. "That's because of my mother, her sacrifice and struggle. She was subjected to a lot of humiliation in the beginning. She experienced a lot of pain and suffering and relentlessly struggled for 31 years," he said. "We have truth and justice on our side. I believe that gave me and my mother strength," he said. His parents Arputhammal and Kuyildasan stood by his side as he spoke to the media for the first time at his Jolarpet residence in Tirupattur district.
In the evening, Perarivalan and family met chief minister M K Stalin at the Chennai airport before the latter left for Coimbatore. "He (the CM) extended wishes with a warm embrace," Perarivalan said.
The chief minister had earlier telephoned the family and shared his joy.
In Jolarpet, Perarivalan distributed sweets to family members, who greeted him with warm embraces and tears rolling down their smiling faces. He garlanded the portraits of former Supreme Court judge V R Krishna Iyer and P Senkodi, a lawyer, who set herself ablaze to protest death penalty ordered for the convicts in 2011. Drawing a parallel to the struggles of the protagonist of Maxim Gorky's 'Mother' to that of his own mother, Perarivalan said the court verdict was the outcome of her long struggle and hailed his family for standing by him through his travails. On his future plans, Perarivalan, who was 19 when he was arrested in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, said he had spent three decades of his life in prison and parole and for the legal struggle, with a strong belief that he would secure a win in the end. "I have just come out. I need to breathe. Give me some time," he said, adding that he could not elaborate his 31 years of imprisonment during a media briefing. "Everyone is human," he said, evading queries on the release of the other six convicts. He said he was yet to read the court verdict. Later, Perarivalan played 'parai', a percussion instrument, along with associates near his Jolarpet residence. Along with Arputhammal, Perarivalan met former chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and thanked him for the efforts taken by his previous government to release him. Later in the night, the mother-son duo met AIADMK coordinator and former deputy CM O Panneerselvam at his residence.