I have the evidence to prove that the Rajiv Gandhi murder was an inside job. But the SIT headed by then Inspector General of Police DR Karthikeyan never pushed the investigation in the right direction. The CBI took over the investigation on 24 May 1991, three days after the brutal murder. The team consisted of Karthikeyan, four DIGs, eight SPs, 14 deputy SPs, 44 inspectors and 55 subinspectors and constables. The members were handpicked by Karthikeyan. Most of them have a proven track record. They investigated the case for almost a year and filed the chargesheet on 20 May 1992. But the chargesheet revealed holes in the investigation and the bungling of the SIT. Even a constable would have done a better job in the case if he had got one year to investigate it. The designated court has convicted all the accused and it’s a fact that the SC acquitted 19 of the accused as the court found there was no substance in the evidence produced to prove their role in the conspiracy…
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on 21 May at 10.20 pm at Sriperumbudur when he was about to campaign for Maragatham Chandrasekar, the Congress candidate. Rajiv had already completed his campaign in Tamil Nadu. But on 18 May, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) charted his tour and included the campaign at Sriperumbudur after Visakhapatnam. But Dina Thanthi, a Tamil daily, published a news item on 17 May that Rajiv was going to address an election rally at Sriperumbudur on 21 May. None of the Congress leaders were aware about such a meeting. On 18 May, the committee responsible for Rajiv’s tour programme held a meeting at AICC and finalised the tour. How was the Dina Thanthi reporter able to write a story on Rajiv’s tour schedule before it was finalised by the AICC?
On 19 May, Vazhapadi Ramamurthy, then Tamil Nadu Congress chief, objected to Rajiv addressing a rally at Sriperumbudur and staying there — he made this clear when he deposed before the trial court. His objections were never taken into consideration as Maragatham was using her clout in Delhi to get Rajiv to address a meeting in her constituency. So the meeting was scheduled and local Congress leaders approached the police authorities to grant permission to hold the meeting at a school ground. But later, for reasons known to Maragatham, the venue was changed to a temple ground.
For changing the venue, the Congress leaders never sought police permission. And there was no proper security arrangement at the meeting.:
Now comes the new shocker from none other than the Chief Minister of Karnataka, Siddramiah.
Assassination attempt at Mysore;
“According to CM Siddaramaiah, there was an attempt to kill Rajiv Gandhi during his visit to Mysore.
Some 10 days before he was assassinated in Tamil Nadu, the former PM was touring Mysore, campaigning for the parliamentary polls. While his cavalcade was traveling on Narasimharaja Boulevard near Lalitha Mahal, an old woman had blocked the convoy leading to a chain of accidents.
Senior Congress leader Azeez Sait’s car rammed into another vehicle as the woman appeared suddenly, Siddaramaiah said, claiming it to be an attempt to kill Gandhi. “Only 10 days later he was killed. It is sad that the party lost a young leader. Only after his assassination was the Mysore incident taken seriously,” he stated, after paying homage to the former Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi at Congress office on Tuesday. ”
A woman claiming to be the wife of the assassinated(1991) Prime minister of India , claimed and obtained his Death Certificate.
‘
The woman identified herself as Sabeen Firdous from Hyderabad and mentioned her age as 50.
Though the authorities wanted to keep it a secret, the news leaked to the media. The Kancheepuram district authorities are now probing into the procedure that was followed before issuing the certificate.
A special team is also inquiring whether the person resides in the address at Dada Sahib Road, Hyderabad that she mentioned while obtaining the certificate.
‘I was part of various analysis teams of Indian intelligence agencies during the 80’s and 90’s and now live a anonymous life in a distant land. What I am going to propagate over a 3 part series in the next few days might seem very farfetched and even fantastic to most people and many conspiracy theorists might gleefully accept it as vindication for whatever they have been screaming from rooftops for quite some time now. My attempt though is neither to please any one nor to prove someone else wrong or right; it is just to come out with the truth as we perceived it. Most of the theory that I am going to put forward in part 1 is the work of us 5 people in 1991 while analyzing all the intelligence inputs over the years in connection with the assassination of former Prime Minister Mr. Rajiv Gandhi. We in the intelligence parlays termed it as “the Rajiv brief”…
Scenario 1: The Rajiv-Sonia marriage
At the outset there is nothing more than just another love story to Mr Rajiv Gandhi’sromance with Miss Antonia Albina Maino in the mid 1960’s. Any suggestion that there were characters in the Cambridge university campus that not only hooked them up but also nurtured the famous romance is too farfetched. But having said that, let us consider some of the London tabloid reports of that time which variously suggested Rajiv was “constantly influenced” by a couple of students of European origin (I would not take names and let researchers do some hard work) and that at least one of those students was later absorbed by the Vatican’s intelligence wing. It would also be farfetched to speculate on Indian intelligence requesting the help of MI5 to analyze the Rajiv-Sonia romance, at least am not aware of any such report ever being filed. All these rumours and theories have done their rounds in the intelligence quarters of Delhi, especially during 1991-1992, but then we are rushing ahead of time so we shall deal with that later. I would now present as to what intelligence agencies actually did, which was very little, and let people draw their own conclusion.
‘Ramanan ji, Thanks for posting the untold story of Rajiv Killing.On April 29,2012 a mail was posted by someone claiming to be aa ex-intelligence officer now living somewhere in anonymiyt”
I checked the blog site.
Excerpts from the blog.
The Rajiv Brief.
‘I was part of various analysis teams of Indian intelligence agencies during the 80’s and 90’s and now live a anonymous life in a distant land. What I am going to propagate over a 3 part series in the next few days might seem very farfetched and even fantastic to most people and many conspiracy theorists might gleefully accept it as vindication for whatever they have been screaming from rooftops for quite some time now. My attempt though is neither to please any one nor to prove someone else wrong or right; it is just to come out with the truth as we perceived it. Most of the theory that I am going to put forward in part 1 is the work of us 5 people in 1991 while analyzing all the intelligence inputs over the years in connection with the assassination of former Prime Minister Mr. Rajiv Gandhi. We in the intelligence parlays termed it as “the Rajiv brief”…
Scenario 1: The Rajiv-Sonia marriage
At the outset there is nothing more than just another love story to Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s romance with Miss Antonia Albina Maino in the mid 1960’s. Any suggestion that there were characters in the Cambridge university campus that not only hooked them up but also nurtured the famous romance is too farfetched. But having said that, let us consider some of the London tabloid reports of that time which variously suggested Rajiv was “constantly influenced” by a couple of students of European origin (I would not take names and let researchers do some hard work) and that at least one of those students was later absorbed by the Vatican’s intelligence wing. It would also be farfetched to speculate on Indian intelligence requesting the help of MI5 to analyze the Rajiv-Sonia romance, at least am not aware of any such report ever being filed. All these rumours and theories have done their rounds in the intelligence quarters of Delhi, especially during 1991-1992, but then we are rushing ahead of time so we shall deal with that later. I would now present as to what intelligence agencies actually did, which was very little, and let people draw their own conclusion.
Background
Post World War 1, Turin was a hub of political activity. Communism was at its peak in Europe and many left leaning socialist organizations were dabbling with the Marxist ideology and as a counter balance to that the fascist forces were emerging as an attractive alternative to many Catholics of Italy, and Turin was no exception. The small village of Orbassano near Turin mainly composed of orthodox Roman Catholic families and they all dreaded the arrival of communists on their shores and decided to join hands with the fascists lead by Mussolini. Paolo Maino was one of them. Indian intelligence gathering techniques are never given their due credit, but we have done some first rate jobs which have never been acknowledged and Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s background check was one of them. It was found that after the end of Second World War when many fascists were purged, Paolo Maino was protected by the church and no less than the Vatican itself intervened in his case and all papers pertaining to him were there by transferred to the Vatican! It was furthermore established that one of the more mysterious uncles of Paolo Maino worked for the super secret intelligence organization of the Vatican, the Opus Dei. Paolo was a construction contractor and had little savings; he could not entirely afford the educational and other expenses of his children. This mysterious uncle; who was working for the Opus Dei and whose name had been deleted from all the intelligence files; sponsored Antonio Albina Maino’s education in Cambridge in the 1960’s.
During her stay in Cambridge Miss Antonio took an “unusually high degree” of interest in the activities of groups concerning students of Indian Diaspora much before she met Rajiv. In fact, their first meeting took place in the presence of other Indian origin students and not in a Greek cafe as widely reported later. But throughout all of this she continued her association with the church and its activities and was in constant touch with “certain sections of the Vatican” which were previously also associated with the fascists. When Indian intelligence officials later questioned one of Miss Antonio’s close associates during her stay in the Cambridge, he described her relationship with the Vatican as akin to “umbilical cord”. All of these titbits were filed by many field officers of various intelligence agencies over a period of years but most analysts in the intelligence parlays of India termed them as “innocent” at worst and “needs evaluation” at best. Of course one can always concede that the analysts of that era lack the luxury of retrospective analysis as we do have now, there was definitely some lax attitude shown by these analysts in trying to decipher these events. Thus one day in 1968, after 3 odd years of courtship Mr. Rajiv Gandhi and Miss Antonio Maino; the daughter of former Fascist soldier, Paolo Maino; were married in Delhi. Miss Maino then became Mrs Sonia Gandhi for all intentions and purposes and the stepping stone to her destiny was covered with roses.
Scenario 2: Event 1, June 23rd 1980
The first player in the political theatre to have been eliminated and also the most important first link to the series of events that led to the present dispensation in the corridors of Delhi. Circumstantial evidence in the June 23rd 1980 Sanjay Gandhi air crash near Safdarjung airport points to foul play but let’s not get sucked into those futile arguments that have been raging ever since. Just suffice it to say that the single-member enquiry commission headed by Mr M L Jain which was formed to study the circumstances that lead to the plane crash has never submitted any report what so ever to the government in 3 decades. Now isn’t that fishy?…
Scenario 3: 1984, the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi
It was one of those events in the young life of a nation that can be termed as a defining moment in history. At the outset it was a clear case of Khalistani fundamentalists avenging operation blue-star, but there were many characters at the periphery and many events preceding it which raised many an eyebrow in the intelligence communities of the world. This was also that one colossal event that catapulted the young Mr Rajiv Gandhi, a novice in politics, to the highest seat of power in South Asia and Mrs Sonia Gandhi was now the next in the line of succession by the virtue of being his wife…
Scenario 4: 1991, the assassination of Mr Rajiv Gandhi
When Mr Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sriperumbudur on 21stMay 1991, it did come as a shock to the intelligence community in India but it would be false to suggest that we had absolutely no clue about it. Tamil Tigers animosity towards Mr Rajiv Gandhi was by no means a universally accepted fact in the intelligence circles and yet there were “elements” in the establishment who had assessed the risk factors from time to time. Many analysts had pointed out way back in 1985 (when Rajiv first tried to establish channels to tigers) the unpredictable nature of the leadership of LTTE and their perceived closeness to “certain” European and Western intelligence agencies. Mr Rajiv Gandhi was more influenced by a section of foreign policy analysts and he paid little heed to whatever little reservations the Indian intelligence agencies had vis-à-vis Tamil Tigers. I must confess that intelligence community in India did not really cover themselves in glory in this whole episode, because it might come as a surprise to most readers to know that we had threat perception for Mr Rajiv Gandhi from many other quarters like Sikh separatists, Islamic (Pakistani funded) militant groups, Chinese sponsored mercenaries and even rogue KGB agents, but had very few inputs and analysis about Tamil Tigers! That was a grave error to say the least. Due to myriad intelligence inputs and even more complex analysis the enquiry following the assassination was mired in many ideas and was muddled in too many complexities.”
There were questions as why Rajiv Gandhi was allowed to go to Sriperumbudur,despite information that he would be assassinated there.
A Congress leader suspiciously canceled his visit at the last-minute.
Sivarasan, the killer was liquidated after the arrival of a Senior officer at the spot.
Rajiv Assassination Video.
The contingent was asked to wait for his arrival, till this officer, though they would have caught the killer alive.
Now Ragothaman exposed that a crucial Video evidence was suppressed.
Read the following and the related posts.
A new book — Conspiracy to Kill Rajiv Gandhi: From the CBI files — by the former chief investigator of the CBI, K Ragothaman, claims that the then IB director and current West Bengal governor MK Narayanan never shared this video with them.
We filed a preliminary enquiry “naming MK Narayanan as a suspect for tampering with valuable evidence but the case was eventually buried by our chief,” Ragothaman told DNA.
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He refers to a secret letter that Narayanan wrote to the then Prime Minister Chandrashekhar the day after the assassination. “Video pictures of this part of the (Sriperumbudur) meeting are presently being scanned to try and identify the lady,” Narayanan wrote in the letter.
Ragothaman discovered a copy of this letter in the report of the Justice Verma Commission’s records. When Justice Verma asked SIT chief Karthikeyan to establish whether this video was tampered or not, he promised a forensic report. “But this report was never submitted by the CBI to the commission… Is it not obvious that M K Narayanan had suppressed evidence?” Ragothaman asks.
He further alleges that the then RAW chief, GS Bajpai, was working to ensure that the LTTE was not blamed for the assassination, saying that the CBI director and SIT chief were recalled from Colombo, where they had gone for investigations, on Bajpai’s “insistence”.
Ragothaman also raises several questions over the role of MDMK leader Vaiko, then with the DMK. He claims Vaiko’s role needed further investigation. Ragothaman claims DMK cadres stayed away from public meetings on the evening of May 21. A scheduled meeting of DMK leader M Karunanidhi “was abruptly cancelled” the same evening.
When he made inquiries as to who may have tipped Karunanidhi off, he was told that it was the TN director general of police. Ragothaman says he “collected evidence about the cancellation of the meeting” but this line of investigation was shut down by his seniors. He feels if this line been explored further, it would have revealed more details of the plot to kill Rajiv Gandhi.
Realising that Rajiv as prime minister would be a near-impossible target, it was decided that they should strike while his security status was still that of an opposition leader and election campaigning would render him even more vulnerable. In end-November, the elusive LTTE supremo Prabhakaran, having decided on the physical elimination of Rajiv Gandhi, summoned four trusted lieutenants – Baby Subramaniyam, Murugan, Muthuraja and Shivarasan – to finalise the contours of an assassination plot. Subramaniyam and Muthuraja were summoned from Madras where they were staying at that time.
In the first week of December, Prabhakaran made his decision known to the four members of the team he had summoned. The actual details of the operation were left to them but each was assigned a specific task. Baby Subramaniyam, a prominent idealogue of the LTTE, was operating from Madras running a printing press publishing LTTE literature. His task was to prepare a back-up team that would arrange shelter for the assassins before and after the killing.
Muthuraja was asked to prepare a base in Madras to ensure proper communication facilities, couriers for messages and the smooth distribution of money for the assassins. Murugan, a key instructor and an explosive expert of the LTTE, was asked to take over the assignments from Subramaniyam and Muthuraja after their departure for Jaffna. Shivarasan, the much wanted man today, who has been labeled ‘one-eyed-jack’ was given the most important task – the actual assassination.
The assassination plot received further impetus with the dismissal of the DMK government led by M. Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu. Karunanidhi’s government was dismissed on grounds of having encouraged the LTTE movement in the state – not entirely baseless as Karunanidhi on his campaign trail, before the assassination, portrayed the fellow Tamils’ cause in Sri Lanka as just and noble.
Imposition of central rule in Tamil Nadu was a major setback for the LTTE. The decision to dissolve the DMK government – though essentially political and under tremendous pressure from the Congress (I) and the AIADMK – was taken following a series of reports filed by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) revealing the growing informal relationship between the followers of the DMK and the LTTE.
But even though the IB had established Karunanidhi’s sympathy towards the LTTE and its links with the DMK, it was utterly in the dark regarding the extremist group’s plan to liquidate Rajiv Gandhi. The external intelligence organization, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), was equally clueless about the existence of the plot.
Meanwhile, by the begining of 1991, the four lieutenants of Prabhakaran had already set the plan in motion. Baby Subramaniyam and Muthuraja were back in Madras. Both were engaged in the crucial first stage of the plot – identifying and recruiting local people who would eventually harbour the assassination squad. A key recruiting centre was a photo agency which had developed into an LTTE hub in Madras. Shubha News and Photo Agency was run by Shubha Sundaram who is considered to be a godfather for most of the budding photographers in Madras. Shubha’s agency was visited by many Dravida Kazhagam (DK) members also. The DK, which is an extremist sibling of the DMK, has been openly sympathetic towards the LTTE.
Muthuraja and Baby Subramaniyam picked their first target – Bhagynathan – a young DK activist from Shubha’s place. Bhagynathan had expressed ambitions of bringing out a political journal but lacked the financial resources. His family was heavily steeped in debt and had meagre means of support. He himself managed to earn a living by supplying stationery items to a firm where his sister, Nalini, was employed as a secretary. His mother, a nurse, was working in Kalyani Nursing Home.
The crunch came when his mother was asked to vacate the quarter provided by the nursing home authorities. The family was desperate, lack of money meant they could not afford to rent a place to live in Madras. The first recruit for the assassination plot had fallen into the LTTE’s lap. Baby Subramaniyam casually mentioned to Bhagynathan that he was looking for a customer for his printing press as he was thinking of switching to another business. Bhagynathan offered to take over the press provided the price was paid in instalments. Seeing Bhagynathan falling into the trap, Baby readily agreed. He sold the press to Bhagynathan at a ridiculously low price of Rs. 5000, payable in small instalments. Baby now had also gained access to Bhagynathan’s entire family which had shifted to the area where the press was located. The press premises, in any event, offered the perfect cover for a suitable hide-out. The second stage of the operation – recruiting the entire family – had begun. Baby’s strategy of convincing Nalini to help her brother run the press was starting to pay off. Nalini was exposed to the LTTE literature which was then being churned out and conveyed one key message: Rajiv Gandhi was solely responsible for the
‘crimes’ perpetrated by the IPKF in Sri Lanka.
Nalini was easy to recruit. She was soon working on a book titled Satanic Forces and sub-titled Heinous Crimes of the Indian Peace Keeping Force. The book carried no comment from the LTTE except one innocuous message from Prabhakaran: “Work is worship”. The book itself was merely a compilation of sundry news reports, photographs, cartoons and editorials published in the Indian media about the negative aspects of the IPKF in Sri Lanka and the mishandling of the situation by Rajiv Gandhi’s government.
Meanwhile, second member of the recruiting team, Muthuraja, had been equally busy in Shubha Sundaram’s agency. Shubha had already received a message from Prabhakaran to co-operate with Muthuraja in a secret operation of the LTTE for which recruitment of some unknown faces was necessary. Two young photographers, Ravi Shankaran and Haribabu, fitted the requirements. Even though Shubha had fired Haribabu for being inattentive, he was deeply indebted to the LTTE for the financial support they had given him for photographic assignments. Haribabu had joined a new agency, Vigneshwar Video, but was well aware that the money paid to him was much more than the normal assignment fee.
This was when Muthuraja informed Haribabu that someone who needed to be trained in photography was arriving from Jaffna and would stay with Haribabu as a paying guest. The new entrant in Haribabu’s life, Balan, did much more than allow Haribabu to earn some extra money. He gradually brain-washed the young photographer into believing that Rajiv Gandhi was solely responsible for the brutality inflicted on the Sri Lankan Tamils and that his return to power would mean yet another bout of atrocities.
Back in Jaffna, Murugan was preparing to make his entry onto the stage that had been set by his two accomplices in Madras. The plot was proceeding satisfactorily and according to schedule. After a series of of meetings with Shivarasan in Jaffna, Murugan decided to send two young LTTE boys from Shivarasan’s village, Jayakumaran and robert Pias, to Madras. They arrived in early February. Initially they stayed at Jayakumaran’s brother-in-law Arivu Perulibalan’s house at Savri Nagar Extention in Porur, a suburb of Madras. Arivu, a diploma holder in computer science, had been living in Madras since early 1990. Although a dedicated member of the LTTE, he had played no active role in its subterranean activities till he was approached by Murugan. Arivu’s electronic expertise was to be of deadly significance.
Murugan entered the scene in mid-February when he arrived in Madras. His first move was to shift Pias and Jayakumaran to new accomodation with the help of Arivu who had been told about the ‘special mission’ without disclosing the target. Murugan’s primary task was to give logistical support apart from providing sufficient financial support to all three. By shifting Pias and Jayakumaran to a new residence, he had also provided another hide-out for the team. Pias and Arivu were told to organise a fake licence for a two-wheeler.
In end-February, Muthuraja introduced Murugan to to Bhagynathan’s family. By then Nalini had developed a deep sense of hatred for Rajiv Gandhi at a time when his return to power was becoming imminent. Murugan thus had no problem in finalising the third hide-out. With three safe shelters, an electronic expert in Arivu who had been asked to improvise a bomb out of grenades that could be detonated by a suicide bomber, three converts in Nalini, Padma and Bhagynathan, and a recruiter in Shubha Sundaram, the plot was in place. Murugan sent a message to Shivarasan in Jaffna asking him to come to Madras. Shivarasan arrived in the first week of March. He first stayed at Pias’ house in Porur where he was given a detailed briefing on the shelters and the people who had been recruited by Muthuraja and Baby Subramaniyam.
Shivarasan’s arrival in Madras completed the elaborate web spun by Prabhakaran in the jungles of Jaffna for the execution of Rajiv Gandhi. From now on, the key role in the plot would be played by Shivarasan. Everything was working to plan. Shivarasan, himself an expert on explosives, examined Arivu’s design for a human bomb and pronounced it suitable. He asked Baby Subramaniyam and Muthuraja to leave for Sri Lanka as it would not be safe for them to live in India any longer. By the end of March, Muthuraja and Baby Subramaniyam left for Jaffna.
Shivarasan moved to the Bhagynathan household where he discussed the plan with Murugan, Nalini and Bhagynathan. He told them that he had somebody in mind who would act as the human-bomb. He also asked Bhagynathan to look for a photographer who could be trusted. However, the target was still kept secret. Ravi Shankaran and Haribabu, old-time friends, were then brought into the picture. Sensing that they were being involved in a specific operation of the LTTE, both realised that they had reached a point of no-return.
The Constitution of India’s stand in Presidential clemency is –
‘The articles 72 and 161 of the Indian Constitution add a human touch to the country’s judicial process by conferring powers on the President and the Governors of various states, respectively to grant pardon or show mercy to criminals sentenced to death. These two articles of the Constitution of India endow the President and the Governor with the power to view the mercy applications of convicts with kindness. They can review the applications without having to view it from a legal angle like that of legal experts who base their opinion solely on the basis of available evidence and the testimony of witnesses.
The powers of the President and the Governor are applicable in these cases:
where the punishment or sentence is by a court martial.
the offence is against any law relating to a matter to which the executive power of the union extends.
Pardon is at the sole discretion of the President and not to be claimed or demanded as a matter of Right and the decision of the President is final.
If the courts were to stay the order of the Supreme Court and the rejection of the mercy petition is to be stayed by the High Court , what is the sanctity of the offices of Supreme Court and the President?
If the Court were to stay the execution, and if some one were to file a petition against this stay, will the courts again take up the matter?
Then there will be no end to the process and it will be a mockery of Law.
Ram Jethmalani argues that the President took eleven years to decide on this and hence the sentence has to be commuted.
If at all any one has to take the blame and be punished, it is the President/s who sat on the petition , which you can not do.
Now the High Court has extended the decision making process delayed by another 8 weeks, Jethmalani can add this period and ask more vehemently for commutation of the sentence.
The whole issue is nothing but bowing to pressure groups which are bent on gaining political mileage.
The State government had ,sadly, to bow to pressure and pass a resolution for clemency.
Jayalalithaas’s earlier stand that she had no powers is correct.
I did not expect this from a no non-sense CM like Jayalaithaa.
On the whole the system of Law and Judiciary is being subverted by mobs, which does not augur well for governance.
read my earlier blog ‘Why Rajiv’s killers be spared?’
Defence counsel Ram Jethmalani argued that the mercy petition of the three men was rejected by the President after more than 11 years changing an earlier convention that any delay beyond two years meant death sentence would be commuted to life imprisonment.
Rajiv Gandhi was killed by an LTTE suicide bomber at an election rally in Sriperumbudur near Chennai on May 21, 1991…..
Assembly passes resolution on clemency Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu Assembly on Tuesday adopted a unanimous resolution urging the President to consider review petition of Rajiv’s assassins.
Chief MinisterJ. Jayalalithaa moved the resolution and the House passed it unanimously. It will now be sent to the President.
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