“If you were Babu Bajrangi, Pragya Thakur and Maya Kodnani, then all rules and human rights will be applied. You will be released and granted bail even on mild medical grounds”.
Abu Zaeem | India Tomorrow
NEW DELHI—Prominent activists, scholars, professors and lawyers today demanded immediate release and adequate medical care to wheelchair bound former Delhi University professor Dr. GN Saibaba who is currently serving life imprisonment in Nagpur Central Jail for his alleged connections with Maoists. Along with Saibaba’s wife, they strongly underlined the need for Saibaba’s release on a medical parole because of his serious health conditions who was tested Covid positive. They also severely slammed the government for adopting double standards on the humanitarian issue stating that, “If you were Babu Bajrangi, Pragya Thakur and Maya Kodnani, then all rules and human rights will be applied”.
The Committee for the Defence and Release of Dr. GN Saibaba organised a press conference at the Press Club of India to highlight the serious condition of Dr Saibaba.
Eminent writer Arundhati Roy, former MP and CPI leader D Raja, General Secretary of the National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD) Muralidharan, former President of Del;hi University Teachers Association (DUTA) Prof Nandita Narain, Prof Parminder Singh, filmmaker Sanjay Kak, wife of Dr. Saibaba and women’s rights activist Vasantha and Prof Vikas Gupta addressed the media.
Saibaba, a wheelchair-bound, 90 per cent physically disabled scholar-activist, was sentenced to life for his alleged connections with Maoists in 2017 and has been in jail since. On February 13, he tested positive for the Covid-19.
Vasantha, wife of Saibaba, asked in a choked voice, “Why was he not taken to hospital? Why is a person suffering from post-polio paralysis, a person who cannot walk, a person whose heart and mind work but every other part of his body is affected, not being given bail? Why is the State afraid of giving him bail?”
Taking a dig at Modi government’s condoning attitude towards the terror-accused likes of Pragya Thakur and others, she said, “if you have connection with the ruling party, you will get benefits all human rights on mild medical grounds”.
“If you were Babu Bajrangi, Pragya Thakur and Maya Kodnani, then all rules and human rights will be applied. You will be released and granted bail even on mild medical grounds. But my innocent husband, who is 90 percent orthopaedically challenged, wheelchair-bound and suffering from paralysis due to post-polio syndrome and developed cysts in the brain, is being punished in a cell without proper care,” she added.
“The last time I spoke to him, he had told me that his health condition was deteriorating rapidly”, she further said, adding, “People like Saibaba, who is innocent, has fought for the rights of the most oppressed and marginalised sections of our society, are rotting in the egg (Anda) cells of jail for years.”
She said Saibaba is mentally very strong as “he told me to not lose my confidence as these dark days will not continue for long. Every period of repression has to end. “
Arundhati Roy spoke of how the incarceration of Dr. Saibaba, a person in judicial custody, amounts to torture every single day that he spends behind bars.
Starkly reminding the changing political conditions over the last five-six years, she said, “Every single day something irreversible is happening to him and slowly taking something away from him.
Roy said there are different scales of torture and rights according to your caste, class, education and other status.
“While there is a sliding scale of access on the basis of ability, caste, class etc., for a person like Dr. Saibaba who is paralysed waist down, for him even in judicial custody he is tortured every day and everything that happens to him, is irreversible,” remarked Roy.
Speaking of Operation Green Hunt and the period where hundreds and thousands of security personnel were released to wreak havoc against Adivasis, she spoke of how people expected the Adivasis to protest non-violently.
She said, “What we are witnessing now is not politics, it is pathology.”
She said, “We have to remember that some of the best lawyers in this country, including Dr. Saibaba’s lawyer, Adv. Surendra Gadling, is in jail. Anyone who stands up for anyone, is sent to jail”.
Commenting on the threat looming over everyone daring to speak for the release of others, she said, “Today, it is dangerous to be in the defence committee. Whoever speaks for Saibaba is likely to be picked up, be it Rona Wilson, Hany Babu and others.”
The booker prize winner author felt that the nation is being hypnotized in some way.
“We have to capture the alternate, the reality, and disable this onslaught on the people of the country”, she said.
Speaking about the use of electronic evidence to accuse and convict dissenting voices, senior Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan said the manner in which emails are planted in computers as revealed by the Arsenal Consulting Report, is a matter of grave concern.
He drew attention to Justice DY Chandrachud’s dissent in the Supreme Court in the petition filed by Romila Thapar and others in light of the Bhima Koregaon arrests where emails which were allegedly recovered from the computers of people using a language unknown to its purported author. He said, “They are now going after everyone who is seen as against the government. They have even gone after journalists who have written stories against the government. The method of doing this is by making any kind of charge. As seen in the Delhi Riots case, they have gone after people against whom they have no evidence, people like Devangana Kalita, Safoora Zargar, Umar Khalid besides many others, all of whom are targeted under the UAPA.”
Bhushan felt that UAPA is utilised due to the provision where at the first instance, without any investigation into the facts of the case, the judge is expected to establish if there is a prima facie case against the accused. He concluded by saying that, “unless the police are held accountable for foisting false cases, they will go on doing this.” Likewise, the continued incarceration of Dr. Saibaba amounts to torture and he called on the courts, the establishment and the others to ensure that he is released immediately.
Drawing connections between the UAPA, Sedition Act, and the role of the BJP-RSS, CPI leader Raja said, “Today, anyone who questions the government, is targeted”. Today, we are witnessing fascist rule. Why are they afraid of Dr. Saibaba? They are not afraid of his body but his brain. The government is afraid of the questions raised by people like Saibaba and the hundreds and thousands of people coming to the streets questioning the policies of the State,” Raja said.
Laying out the current political climate where anyone fighting for the rights of others, faces false cases, Prof Nandita Narain reiterated the unequal nature of the law wherein, “today, justice looks at the face of the person standing before it and gives justice accordingly. If you are a Saibaba, Sudha Bharadwaj or others, false cases are foisted on you, something proved beyond doubt by the Arsenal Report.”
Prof. Parminder Singh said, “If we consider the imprisonment of people like Sudha Bharadwaj, Rona Wilson, Gautam Navlakha and others, it becomes clear that they were speaking against the acquisition of resources, against the attack on the natural resources of this country.”
Reiterating the inhumanity of denying bail to a person with such severe ailments, Muralidharan said, “The experience of Dr. Saibaba amounts to nothing but torture, cruelty and indignity.” As someone speaking for the rights of persons with disabilities, he said, “we are demanding that they implement the laws enshrined in the Constitution.”
Highlighting the physical ailments of Dr. Saibaba, Vikas Gupta found the inordinate delays by the judiciary amounts to denial of justice. He hoped that, “the judiciary will learn a little more sensitivity and release Dr. Saibaba expeditiously”.
Calling Dr. Saibaba a prisoner of conscience, filmmaker Sanjay Kak has reminded everyone of the threat posed by Dr. Saibaba for simply drawing attention to the Operation Green Hunt. “But today, the threat to his life is also a threat to us and what lies ahead for all of us,” he warned.
