By M.R. Narayan Swamy    When I called Shuba Sundaram on the telephone the night of 21 May 1991, requesting him to quickly send any photographs of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination he could lay his hands on, little did I realise that I was courting a big problem.  Gandhi was blown up by a young female suicide bomber at an election rally at Sriperumbudur (near Chennai) earlier that night, killing the former Prime Minister along with many others. The suicide bomber, who also died, was later revealed to be from the LTTE, along with everyone who planned and oversaw the gore.  I had rushed from home to the AFP Delhi office to join what turned out to be the biggest story of the new decade until the razing in December 1992 of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya blew the national fuse.  As I was the only one in AFP’s Delhi staff who spoke Tamil as my mother tongue, chief photographer Douglas Curran, an American, asked me to speak to Shuba Sundaram in English. I did that, and Shuba Sundaram, an AFP photo stringer based in Chennai, said he will do his best.  By the time our conversation took place, violence directed at the DMK had broken out all over Chennai and in large parts of Tamil Nadu, amid intense speculation that the LTTE was to blame for Gandhi’s grotesque killing. The DMK was seen as pro-LTTE and paid the price for it.   Haribabu, a young unsuspecting photographer who had been hired by the LTTE to photograph what it knew would be Gandhi’s final moments, was a protégé of Shuba Sundaram, who himself was a godfather to several young and budding photographers. It was he who sent Haribabu on the Sriperumbudur errand.  There were no mobile phones then and no 24x7 television news channels. Predictably, Shuba Sundaram rushed towards the Congress election rally venue at Sriperumbudur to inquire about Haribabu and get his camera. But in the wake of rioting, police stopped him on the city’s outskirts and refused to let him proceed further.  We in AFP Delhi were unaware of these goings-on.  A few days later, Amod Kanth, a former Delhi Police officer, telephoned from Chennai. He said he had joined the Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed to crack Gandhi’s assassination and he wanted to ask some questions. I had met Amod Kanth many times in Delhi and had no objections to whatever questions he had although I could not fathom how I could be of any help to him.  In no time, I could make out that Amod Kanth was interested in knowing about my brief telephone conversation with Shuba Sundaram.  “Did you call him on 21 May? What did you tell him? How long did the conversation last? How long has he been the AFP photo stringer in Chennai? How much does AFP pay for black and white and colour photographs? Do you remember any other aspect of your conversation?”  Not knowing the full extent of the SIT investigation, I was amazed why he was asking so many questions. And then, suddenly I thought I was hearing a whirring sound; was Amod Kanth recording what we were speaking?  Yes, he admitted, somewhat sheepishly. And when he told me why, I almost fell off the chair.  “You see, we asked Shuba Sundaram why he was going to Sriperumbudur after the killing, and why he was interested in getting hold of the camera (which was with Haribabu). He replied that you had told him to pick up that camera.”  To say I was stunned would be a complete understatement. Unable to believe what was being said, I almost cried out: “What?!”  I protested. “How the hell would I know that night that there was somebody called Haribabu who had perished while taking Gandhi’s final photographs and that his camera was there in the burning heap?”  True, Amod Kanth replied, without any trace of emotion. And changing the subject, he asked me if I will visit the SIT headquarters at Adayar the next time I am in Chennai.  I did go to “Malligai” as the SIT office was known. A moat had been dug up all around it, ostensibly to prevent suicide attacks. I had informed beforehand that I will be visiting, and I was led to Amod Kanth.  “Don’t worry! Your name has been cleared,” were his welcome words. Shuba Sundaram, he said, had admitted to his interrogators that I had nothing to do with Haribabu or any camera and he had made up the tale when he was first asked the reason why he wanted to get hold of the camera.  The camera was found, unharmed, by some Tamil Nadu policemen who gave it to their seniors, who passed it onto the Forensic Department, who discovered, to their horror, that it contained the last nine snaps of Gandhi – until he became an unrecognisable part of a bright orange glow.   One of the photographs showed Sivarasan, the one-eyed Jaffna man who masterminded the Gandhi killing, on the spot, and two women linked to the killing. The rest, as they say, is history.  I felt relieved after hearing from Amod Kanth. But I felt sorry for Shuba Sundaram. Wasn’t he a colleague after all? Could he have known that the LTTE planned to kill Gandhi and use Haribabu so callously? Shuba Sundaram turned out to be, like so many in Tamil Nadu, sympathetic to the cause of the LTTE and ended up being used by the group.  Shuba Sundaram, I regret to add, passed away after being released from prison.