Defense in Gandhi Slaying Trial Denies Sikh Fired Fatal Shots, Implies Her Son Was Involved

The three men accused in the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi are innocent victims of religious prejudice and of an effort to protect the true killers, the attorney for one of them contended here Friday during opening arguments by the defense.

Defense attorney P.N. Lekhi shocked the crowded courtroom, where the assassination conspiracy trial opened Thursday, by suggesting that the motive for the slaying might be found within the Gandhi family itself.

“Who has motive inside the family?” asked Lekhi, an opposition party political figure who is representing Delhi police Constable Satwant Singh, one of the men alleged to have shot Gandhi on Oct. 31 as she walked on a garden path between her residence and office.

“Someone killed Mrs. Gandhi,” Lekhi, a flamboyant and controversial figure, said, “and that someone is not in the dock today. That someone may be one or more. Satwant Singh did not shoot.”

‘Didn’t Drop a Tear’

The lawyer added, “Somebody very, very far away didn’t even drop a tear when he heard about this incident--and he was her son.”

At the time of Indira Gandhi’s death, her only surviving son was Rajiv Gandhi. Her younger son had died earlier in an airplane crash. Rajiv, who succeeded his mother as prime minister, was in a remote village in West Bengal state when the assassination took place and learned about it from a radio report.

At this point in Friday’s proceedings, Special Sessions Judge Mahesh Chandra began to interrupt Lekhi. However, the attorney, who is known primarily for his McCarthyesque theories of Communist conspiracies inside the Indian government, quickly changed the subject.

The prosecution in the conspiracy case against Satwant Singh, one of Indira Gandhi’s household security officers, Kehar Singh, a government bureaucrat, and Balbir Singh, another constable assigned to the security staff, presented its case Thursday.

Prosecutor K.L. Arora charged that the three men, along with Beant Singh, another constable who was killed immediately after the assassination, were part of a conspiracy conceived after the prime minister ordered the army to storm the Sikh faith’s sacred Golden Temple in Amritsar a year ago.

Bullet-Proof Compartment

All of the accused are bearded and turbaned members of the Sikh faith, which is centered inPunjab state. Although they all share the common Sikh name of Singh, they are not related. During trial sessions, they are confined to a bullet-proof glass box inside the courtroom.

The trial is being held for security purposes in a courtroom inside Central Tihar Jail. The building is inside a high fence under towers holding guards with machine guns.

Lekhi ridiculed the government case, insisting that it is built on religious prejudice against Sikhs--”painting the whole Sikh community as quislings”--and skimpy facts--”a little whisper becomes a conspiracy.”

Lekhi asked the judge to dismiss the case because he said the special police commissioner appointed to investigate the assassination, Anand Ram, was illegally appointed “for the sole purpose of suppressing evidence against those really responsible for this political assassination.” Judge Chandra said he would rule on Lekhi’s motion next week.

Near the end of Friday’s session, the tall, powerfully built Satwant Singh suddenly jumped up inside the glass box in which he and the other two defendants are confined during the trial and asked the judge to look out the curtained windows, reinforced with heavy bars.

“Some people are outside. They are looking in,” Satwant Singh said nervously in the Punjabi language. “What are they doing there?” When court observers looked, there was no one outside but a few guards.