India releases ex-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s killers, 30 years after assassinationSign up for Flagship, our daily newsletter that distills what’s happening in the world into a concise, insightful morning read.Rajiv Gandhi was 46 when he was assassinated by members of a Sri Lankan armed separatist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), in a rally in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in 1991.The killing was viewed as a response to Gandhi’s decision to intervene in the Sri Lankan civil war in 1987, where he sent thousands of Indian troops to disarm Tamil Tiger rebels.The court this year also ordered the release of A. G. Perarivalan, who was also sentenced to death over Gandhi's killing but was freed on the basis of “good conduct.”The decision was not welcomed by some, including Jairam Ramesh, a member of the Indian National Congress, the party Gandhi had led and which is now in opposition.Taking to Twitter, Ramesh said the convicts' release was “totally unacceptable and completely erroneous.”Gandhi became the country’s youngest prime minister following elections in 1984 after his mother, then-prime minister Indira Gandhi, was herself assassinated, in that case by her bodyguards."