Dr.Binayak Sen, the much acclaimed medical practitioner and Vice-President, Peoples’ Union For Civil Liberties Activist (PUCL) was sentenced to life-long rigorous imprisonment along with Piyush Guha, a merchant and an alleged courier and an alleged Naxalite Narayan Sanyal on Dec 24 2010. Dr.Sen was freed on bail two years ago and other two didn’t have the luck of coming out of prison at least for a short span. While Piyush Guha was languishing in a Chattisgarh jail, his parents died and in spite of that no reprieve was extended to him to perform the last rites of his parents. Similarly Narayan Sanyal, an aged and ailing person who is reportedly suffering from a serious disease was not given medical treatment by the jail authorities.
Their trials and tribulations in jail forced the PUCL (Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties) to venture on behalf of a number of such persons harassed in jail since a prolonged period.
It is learnt that law of sedition came into practice during British rule to take action against freedom fighters and now it has already turned archive and applying it on persons like Dr.Sen are quite unheard of and it is high time such draconian acts applied on hard-core criminals.
Dr.Binayak Sen, a barefoot doctor served the middle-class and lower middle-class patients throwing away a lucrative profession and ever since he joined PUCL, he was looked with suspicion by the govt and the law and order authorities which ultimately landed him in prison.
Ilina Sen, Dr.Sen’s wife reportedly made it clear to the press persons in a press conference that even before the pronouncement of the verdict by Justice B.P.Verma of Chattisgarh Sessions Court about whom human rights activist and eminent lawyer Prashant Bhushan reportedly asked how a judge like Verma came to be appointed to the lower Judiciary - there was heavy police bandobust around Dr.Sen’s house. She reportedly pointed to her allegation that Chattisgarh govt had prior knowledge about the judgement that made her desperate and disillusioned.
Even Amnesty International took strong exception to the verdict and its observation goes on like this: “Many of the charges against Sen stem from laws that contravene international standards. Repeated delays in the conduct of his trial have cast doubts about its fairness. The life sentence handed down against him violates international fair trial standards and is likely to enflame tensions in the conflict-affected area”.
Ilina Sen’s desperation forced her to make it clear that she and her family did want to go out of India as she found the system here atrocious. If she still thinks on these lines it is not surprising that while a person of Dr.Sen’s stature is being harassed in a prison the corrupt elements in the citadels of power roam free in air-conditioned cars. The looters enjoy life while those who work for the downtrodden are being shadowed and jailed. When should we expect this lop-sided system to end in this so-called democracy? Whether the ruling mandarins think on the lines of whether those languishing in prisons if freed come to the limelight join the mainstream to be one with the looters.
These languishing ones after being sentenced to life-long rigorous imprisonment have no champions to advocate their causes among the mainstream political parties, it is alleged. They ought to fight for their freedom and should have of the audacity to demand imprisonment of the corrupt elements looting the country.
Power politics, muzzle politics, money politics and vote-bank politics should have to be done away with instead fight for those at the lower rung of the ladder is the need of the hour.
Poverty, corruption and unemployment on a large-scale have started instigating the masses in certain countries like Tunisia, Egypt and which next are eye-openers and we need not nurture a mistaken notion that our country is impervious to such mass uprising……
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