Call for release of jailed professor ill with COVID-19

Rights groups and civil society organisations have called for the release of a former Delhi University professor currently serving a prison term in India, who recently tested COVID-19 positive, which could be life-threatening given his existing conditions and lack of adequate medical care.

So far, the authorities have refused to release on humanitarian grounds Gakarakonda Naga Saibaba, a former professor of English at Ram Lal Anand College, Delhi University, who was convicted for having Maoist links by a court in 2017 and is currently serving time in Nagpur Central Prison in the western state of Maharashtra.

The Maoist insurgency is an ongoing conflict between rebel Maoist groups, also known as Naxalites, and the Indian government. But scholars and academics in India have hailed him as a champion of human rights on behalf of vulnerable populations, including tribal groups, who suffer poverty and rights violations due to the prolonged Maoist insurgency.

Several national and international organisations, including International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India, Scholars at Risk, PEN America, Freedom Now, Free Saibaba Coalition-US and others, have issued a joint statement demanding Saibaba’s immediate release on medical parole.

Saibaba is said to be 90% physically handicapped and wheelchair bound. He tested positive for COVID-19 on 13 February 2021. Activists say it could prove detrimental to his life since he has co-morbidities but is not getting proper medical care.

According to the Committee for the Defence and Release of Dr GN Saibaba, the former professor suffers from several serious ailments including a grave heart condition, hypertension, kidney stones, brain cyst, pancreatic problems, and attenuation of the shoulder and arm muscles and nerves resulting in partial paralysis, most of which developed in jail.

The committee, with G Haragopal, a former law professor and human rights activist, as its convener, was constituted in the aftermath of Saibaba’s arrest in May 2014 and comprises teachers from Delhi University and other universities, writers, artists, and social and political activists.

Saibaba’s wife, Vasantha Sai, told University World News: “We expect that he should be provided the best of treatment in a specialised government hospital, as he suffers from various ailments.

“He has got almost 19 health problems. Both his legs are paralysed. His left hand was also swollen and had an infection. Even his right hand is not fully functional,” Vasantha said, adding that her husband has to depend on helpers for any kind of movement.

She also said he was denied parole last year, “although even gangsters and murderers are getting parole.”

Saibaba’s ailing mother wanted to see him for the last time but as the court denied him parole and bail, she died of cancer without seeing him in August last year, said Vasantha. Even after the death of his mother he was denied bail by the court on the grounds that he has another brother to complete the funeral rituals of his mother, she said.

Saibaba was arrested in 2014 under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, on grounds of being involved in alleged ‘anti-national’ activities and having alleged links to Maoists – charges Saibaba denies.

‘Links with rebels’

Prosecutors said he was running a ‘Maoist front’ and maintaining links with rebels in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra state in the West. In 2009, he was a prominent voice in the campaign against Operation Green Hunt, mainly military actions perpetrated by the Indian state against rebels. In 2015, he was released on temporary medical bail.

On 7 March 2017, while receiving medical treatment in intensive care, he was sentenced to life by a trial court judge. He was then moved to solitary confinement in a high security cell in Nagpur prison, where he continues to be incarcerated.

Vasantha and Saibaba’s brother, Dr G Ramadevudu, have also written a letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray requesting Saibaba be shifted to a good private hospital in Nagpur with the necessary medical facilities for COVID-19 treatment and suitable for a physically challenged patient.