The apex court ordered the release of 19 persons, out of which 10 are Indian and will be released from prisons where they are lodged. The Sri Lankans will be moved to refugee camps in Vellore, Melur, Chengalpattu and other areas.

Sources claimed that the Prisons Department had received a fax from New Delhi about the Supreme Court order late in the evening and prison authorities have decided to release the 19 people today.

The accused in the Rajiv Gandhi case were earlier detained in central prisons in Chennai, Vellore and Salem. Those detained in the Chennai central prison are Shankar, Vijayanandan, Ruban, Kanakasabapathi, Shanmughavadivelu, Subha Sundaram and Ranganath.

Of the four persons who were sentenced to death by the Supreme Court today in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case,two - Santhan and Arivu alias Perarivalan - are lodged in the central jail in Salem. Similarly, Ravichandran and Robert Pyas, two of the three persons sentenced to life imprisonment and three others who were acquitted yesterday are also lodged in the same prison. The central jail here was converted into a ``high security prison'' in March last year with electric fencing and 18 closed circuit televisions installed to watch the movements of the prisoners.