New Delhi, July 18: The Supreme Court today asked the Centre to decide on detaining or deporting two Sri Lankan Tamils who allegedly played a “major role” in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and its conspiracy, reports our legal correspondent.

A division bench stayed a Madras High Court order deporting the duo to Sri Lanka but asked the Centre: “How long will you keep them?”

At this, solicitor-general G.E. Vahanvati said he would get back to the court after hearing from the external affairs ministry.

A multi-disciplinary monitoring committee headed by the CBI chief has challenged the high court order releasing the two Sri Lankans.

, Lingam and Vasanthan, who have been detained for over six years.

Vahanvati told the apex court that the two persons continued to be detained, as the Sri Lankan government was “not cooperating”.

The bench stayed the high court’s order for 15 days and posted the matter for hearing on August 1.

The petition said “it has come to light during the course of investigation by the special investigation team as well as the MDMC, that the respondents (Lingam and Vasanthan) are closely associated with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam”, the guerrilla organisation waging a war to liberate Tamil Eelam from Sri Lanka and accused of killing Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

The MDMC said “Lingam had received the nine-member killer squad consisting of the one-eyed jack Sivarasan, Dhanu alias Anbu, Subbha alias Nithya, Neru alias Gokul, Suthandiraraja alias ‘Gundu’ Santhan, Shankar alias Koneswaran, Vijayanandan alias Hariyya, Ruban alias Suresh and Driver Anna alias Keerthi at (the) Kodaikkarai coast on May 1, 1991”.