Skip to main content

Why Govt of India fears release of Dr Saibaba, a person with 90% disabilities? asks wife

The wife of Dr GN Saibaba, jailed wheelchair bound former professor of Delhi University with 90% disability and several severe comorbidities, has complained that, despite her husband was tested Covid-19 positive on February 12, he was not taken to hospital, wondering, “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?”
Addressing media conference in Delhi organised by the Committee for the Defence and Release of Dr GN Saibaba, who is lodged at the anda cell (solitary confinement) of Nagpur Central Prison on being arrested on May 9, 2014 on charges of having Naxalite-Maoist links, Vasantha said, 13 out of 25 people in his barrack tested positive. Despite this, not just he but none of the inmates were taken to the hospital. They were provided basic antibiotics and told to fend for themselves.
She further said, Dr Saibaba was not allowed to meet his dying mother or even perform the last rites after her death. When so many others were being given parole, bail or even being acquitted after being released from jail, why is Dr Saibaba still being held in custody?, she asked, pointing towards the terror she felt when she heard of Kanchan Nannaware, a prisoner with a severe ailment in the heart who was operated on and died during surgery, a surgery performed without informing her husband or family.
General secretary of the National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD) Muralidharan told media, “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”, adding, denial of assistive devices like wheelchairs for persons who cannot walk amounts to torture. “In light of the torture faced by him, Dr Saibaba must be released”, he added.
Former president of the Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) Nandita Narain, “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.” She added, “We are here to demand his release on bail and proper medical treatment instead of the anda cell.”
Speaking of the use of electronic evidence to accuse, charge and convict dissenting voices, well-known Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan said, the manner in which emails are planted in computers, as revealed by the Arsenal Consulting Report, suggests the need to take up 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 Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).”
Bhushan felt that this law 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 stated, “Unless the police are held accountable for foisting false cases, they will go on doing this.” Likewise, he added, 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 Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, Sedition Act, the role of the BJP-RSS and the incarceration of Dr Saibaba, former CPI Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha D Raja said, “Today, anyone who questions the government is targeted. We are facing a grave threat to the ethos that we have been proud of. Today, we are witnessing fascist rule.” He wondered why is the government afraid of Dr Saibaba, pointing out, “They are not afraid of his body but his brain.”
A member of the defence committee for Dr Saibaba, filmmaker Sanjay Kak said, the threat to Dr Saibaba’s life “is also a threat to us and what lies ahead for all of us”. Prof Parminder Singh added, Dr Saibaba stood in defence the basic rights of the people of this country to their livelihood, resources and culture, one reason why the demand for his release becomes absolutely urgent and legitimate, as his incarceration is part of the onslaught against all those who speak against the attack on the resources of this country.
Well-known writer Arundhati Roy, pointing out how how the incarceration of Dr Saibaba, a person in judicial custody, amounts to torture every single day that he spends behind bars, said, “Every single day something irreversible is happening to him. This is every day, slowly taking something away from him. 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.”
She said, “What we are witnessing now is not politics, it is pathology”, pointing out, “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 in jail”, she said, adding, ,“Today, it is dangerous to be in the defence committee. Whoever speaks for Dr Saibaba is likely to be picked up, be it Rona Wilson, Hany Babu and others.”

Comments

TRENDING

Will Trump administration use US religious freedom report to further pressure India into submission?

Already under pressure from the Trump administration, which has reportedly asked India—successfully, some would say—to remove high tariffs on American products, there is reason to wonder whether Washington might use the recommendations of the latest United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Annual Report to further act against the Government of India.

Gujarat No 1 here too? Cops justify torture, insist: Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis, migrants are 'naturally prone' to crimes

A new report, "Status of Policing in India Report 2025: Police Torture and (Un)Accountability", states that Gujarat tops the list of 16 states and one Union Territory, with 63% of its police personnel "strongly endorsing" torture. Furthermore, 49% of Gujarat’s police personnel were found to have what the report calls a "high propensity" for torture, considering it "necessary and acceptable" for obtaining information across various crime categories—second only to Jharkhand (50%). In sharp contrast, Kerala has the lowest percentage of police personnel "justifying" torture (3%) and the lowest "high propensity" for violence (1%).

A traditional Marxian view? Like nuclear weapons, AI poses 'direct existential threat' to human civilization

The other day, I was talking with YS Gill , whom I have known as an incisive analyst since my youth, when he, like me, was associated with the Communist Party of India (CPI). A passionate science activist committed to creating awareness of scientific thinking, he told me about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it would lead to mass unemployment. Predicting that AI would replace human intervention in India’s call centers, he estimated that about 70 lakh people would be rendered jobless.

60 crore in Mahakumbh? It's all hype with an eye on UP polls, asserts keen BJP supporter in Amit Shah's constituency

As the Mahakumbh drew to a close, during my daily walk, I met a veteran BJP supporter—a neighbor with whom we would often share dinner in a group. An amicable person, the first thing he asked me, as he was about to take the lift to his flat, was, "How many people do you think must have participated in the holy dip?" He then stopped by to talk—which we did for a full half-hour, cutting into my walk time.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Patriot, Link: How Soviet imbroglio post-1968 crucially influenced alternative media platforms

Adatata Narayanan, Aruna Asaf Ali Alternative media, as we know it today in the age of information and communication technology (ICT), didn't exist in the form it does today during or around the time I joined formal journalism at Link Newsweekly as a sub-editor in January 1979. However, Link, and its sister publication Patriot, a daily—both published from Delhi—were known to have provided what could be called an alternative media platform at a time when major Delhi-based dailies were controlled by media barons.

Breaking news? Top Hindu builder ties up with Muslim investor for a huge minority housing society in Ahmedabad

There is a flutter in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur area, derogatorily referred to as the "border" because, on its eastern side, there is a sprawling minority area called Juhapura, where around five lakh Muslims live. The segregation is so stark that virtually no Muslim lives in Vejalpur, populated by around four lakh Hindus, and no Hindu lives in Juhapura.

Martyrs’ Day at Sanand: Remembering Vinod Kinariwala amidst politics of remembrance

I was urged by a close relative, considered across my family as a binding force, to attend a grand ceremony on Martyrs' Day, March 23, along with four other relatives. The event, called Veeranjali (homage to martyrs), was to be held in an open space near Sanand town, about 15 kilometers from Ahmedabad. Martyrs' Day has been observed across India since independence, as it was on this day in 1931 that Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru were executed.

Caste, class, and Patidar agitation: Veteran academic 'unearths' Gujarat’s social history

Recently, I was talking with a veteran Gujarat-based academic who is the author of several books, including "Social Movements in India: A Review of Literature", "Untouchability in Rural India", "Public Health and Urban Development: The Study of Surat Plague", and "Dalit Identity and Politics", apart from many erudite articles and papers in research and popular journals.