cpim.org / by CPI(M) Central Committee Office
We are herewith releasing the full text of the letter addressed to the Home Minister, Amit Shah by CPI(M) Polit Bureau Member, Brinda Karat. This pertains to the inhuman treatment of human rights activists arrested in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case. The letter was sent today.
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81-YR-OLD VARAVARA RAO DETERIORATING RAPIDLY
Calls by other inmates reveal he is very sick, vomiting often.
Covid-19 is raging in Taloja jail. No mass testing, swabs taken after death.
Save his life.
URGENT MEDICAL ATTENTION IS NEED OF THE HOUR
@OfficeofUT @PawarSpeaks
Rediff.com / by Prasanna D Zore
On August 28, 2020, the respected lawyer and human rights activist Sudha Bharadwaj will complete two years in jail …
“If somebody is working for poor people, then does it mean they are criminals?”, Maaysha, Bharadwaj’s daughter who got to speak with her mother after four months on June 9, asks Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com.
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Newsclick / by Parth MN
Even after 2 deceased inmates were found COVID-19 positive, testing is not being done in Taloja where rights activists, mostly 60+, arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case have been lodged.
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The Hindu / by Sonam Saigal
As of June 13, 17, 695 screenings and 1681 swab tests were conducted in 10 Central Prisons in Maharashtra and in the Additional Director General, Prisons (ADGP) office of which 269 tested positive, 115 recovered and four died, the Bombay High Court was informed on Monday.
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The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha
While others who have been accused in the case have managed to stay in touch with their families and lawyers, Bharadwaj’s daughter and lawyers have not been able to do so despite multiple requests and a court order.
Mumbai: Maaysha saw her mother, Sudha Bharadwaj, last on February 22. It was a day after Maaysha’s birthday; she turned 23 this year. In the mulaqaat (meeting) at Yerwada prison in Pune, Bharadwaj – an academic and human rights activist – was barely given five minutes to talk to her daughter who had travelled from Delhi just for this meeting.
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UPDATE, June 10: After nearly 3 months, jail authorities allowed Sudha Bharadwaj to call her daughter & speak to her for 2 minutes.
The Times of India / by Shishir Arya & Sarfaraz Ahmed
Nagpur: Two years after activists — Nagpur University professor retired) Shoma Sen and lawyer Surendra Gadling – were arrested in Bhima-Koregaon case, their kin say the lockdown has left them clueless about their well-being in jail. They were already complaining of a slow progress in the case.
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The Hindu / by Sonam Saigal
‘In COVID-19 times, especially when Maharashtra has emerged as the State with the highest number of cases, differentially treating bail petitions by political prisoners is gross injustice’.
The denial of bail to all accused in the Elgaar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case was “patently callous”, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) said on Monday, and urged that the health and safety of political prisoners be treated with the same urgency as other prisoners.
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01/06/2020
Kractivism / by PUDR
With the surrenders of Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha on April 14, 2020 in Mumbai and Delhi respectively, the NIA, the investigative agency, has ensured the arrest of all 11 prominent human rights activists in the infamous Bhima Koregaon case under the draconian UAPA. The recent rejection of the bail applications of Varavara Rao, Anand Teltumbde, Shoma Sen and Sudha Bharadwaj, and the sudden transfer of Gautam Navlakha by the NIA, raise significant questions about the rights of political prisoners amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The New Indian Express / by IANS
Varavara Rao’s wife Hemalatha and daughter Pavana staged a three-hour-long protest at home, holding placards for release of the 80-year-old who was arrested in November 2018.
HYDERABAD: Revolutionary Telugu poet and writer Varavara Rao, who is in judicial custody in Maharashtra in the Bhima Koregaon case, has been admitted to JJ Hospital at Mumbai, officials said on Friday.
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Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff
Taloja Jail authorities said Rao was being treated at the medical facility within the jail, but his condition did not improve for three days.
Varavara Rao, the 81-year-old Telugu poet and an accused in the Elgar Parishad case, was admitted to JJ Hospital in Mumbai on Thursday, the Hindustan Times reported. Taloja Jail authorities said Rao was being treated at the medical facility within the jail over the last three days, but was shifted to hospital after his condition did not improve.
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South Asia Citizens Web / by P Sahaja, P Anala, P Pavana
To
The Governor, Maharashtra,
The Chief Justice, High Court of Maharashtra,
The Chief Minister of Maharashtra,
We, P Sahaja, P Anala, P Pavana, daughters of the famous revolutionary poet P Varavara Rao, who is incarcerated in Maharashtra jails (in Yerawada, Pune jail till February 2020 and in Taloja, Navi Mumbai jail since then) in a fabricated case, are perturbed to see the news that a prisoner died in Taloja jail due to Covid-19, as admitted by the government in a PIL case in Mumbai High Court yesterday.
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CITING HEALTH, VARAVARA RAO’S DAUGHTERS URGE MAHARASHTRA CM UDDHAV THACKERAY FOR HIS PAROLE
The New Indian Express / by Express News Service
Earlier, at least 40 prominent writers had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting the release of Rao amid the crisis.
MUMBAI: Family members of poet, writer and activist Varavara Rao, jailed in connection with the Bhima-Koregaon case, appealed to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to release him on parole amid the rising number of Covid-19 cases in the state and in its prisons.
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26/05/2020
The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha
In an affidavit submitted to the Bombay high court in response to a PIL, the state government said that a prisoner each has died in the central prisons of Taloja and Yerwada, and in Dhule district prison. Maharashtra is the first state to have reported deaths in prisons so far.
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25/05/2020
The Hindu / by Sonam Saigal
Judges withhold bail; several prison reforms recommended over the years have fallen through the cracks.
On May 5, two months after the Arthur Road jail superintendent warned that an outbreak of COVID-19 could not be contained in the jail due to overcrowding, his worst fears came true: the first positive case was discovered in the precincts.
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30/03/2020
The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha
No transport has been arranged for those who are released, while inmates still in prison fear for their health.
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