NEW DELHI: Indian president has rejected mercy pleas from three men convicted of the 1991 assassination of then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, paving the way for their execution, an official said on Thursday.

The appeal, sent to President Pratibha Patil by the men — Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan, all known by single names — was their last hope of escaping the hangman's noose.

All three belonged to Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) militant group, which was accused of plotting the May 21, 1991, murder of the prime minister by a female suicide bomber.

Mr Gandhi had become India's youngest prime minister after his mother, former premier Indira Gandhi, was assassinated in October 1984, and ruled until losing an election five years later.

The shredded clothes and the shoes he was wearing when he was killed while on an election tour in the southern parts of the country 20 years ago remain on display in a museum in the Indian capital.

“The rejection (of the clemency petitions) happened last week after the president returned from a foreign tour,” president's spokeswoman Archana Datta said.

Although the Supreme Court upheld the original death penalty verdict for the three convicts it later commuted the capital punishment to life in prison for Nalini Sriharan, an Indian Tamil woman who was also convicted.—AFP