Chennai, May 18 (IANS): Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) President, K.S. Alagiri has said that the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convicts were not 'innocent'. He said this in a Twitter post after the verdict of the Supreme Court on the release of A.G. Perarivalan who was convicted for the murder of the former Prime Minister.

Alagiri, however, said that he was not contesting the verdict of the Supreme Court and added that the verdict was based on 'legalities'. He said that the same Supreme Court had earlier convicted Perarivalan long ago and that now he was being released citing legalities.

In the post, Alagiri said, "We don't want to criticize the judgment of the Supreme Court. At the same time we want to emphasise that the perpetrators are murderers and that they are not innocent."

He also said that the Supreme Court's decision to release the convict as a judgment on whether the Tamil Nadu governor was constitutionally right in referring to Perarivalan's plea for pardon to the President of India without taking a decision."

BJP Tamil Nadu state president, K. Annamalai in a tweet said that he accepted the verdict and added, "At the same time we hope the Supreme Court does not compromise on issues surrounding the nation's security and unity."