Chennai: Robert Pious, suspected LTTE commando hitman and one of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi killers, has sought mercy killing.

In a letter sent to the chief minister E Palanisami, the convict lamented that he has already spent 27 years in jail and has absolutely no hope of getting freed given the intention of the government.

Pious, one of the seven convicted for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, sent a three page letter in Tamil to chief minister pleading that he be given ‘mercy killing’ as the government had no intention to free him.

“Hence I’m never going to be released from prison, I request to ‘mercy kill’ me,” Robert Pious said in his letter.

Tamil Nadu government and chief minister J Jayalalithaa had made attempts to free the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convicts but the centre stepped in with a firm no.

Robert Pious, a LTTE key operative had confessed to being one of the key planners of the assassination. Rajiv Gandhi was blown up by a human bomb on May 21, 1991 at Sriperumbudur when he came there for an election meeting.

So far, Tamil Nadu government had made attempts to free the convicts, with the assembly passing a resolution as well to get them released. But with Supreme Court firmly ruling that it was centre’s primacy in the case and the state must get centre’s consent before it could remission to the convicts in their sentence.

A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court had in 2015 said that the state governments must secure “concurrence” of the Union government before freeing convicts in certain cases.