Civil rights groups and academics in India and the US have called on India’s government to free a leading public health specialist and human rights activist, Dr Binayak Sen, who was sentenced to life in prison last Friday for helping Maoist rebels, BBC online reports Tuesday.
Dr Sen was found guilty of carrying messages and setting up bank accounts for the rebels, who are active in large areas of central and eastern India. Activists say the evidence against Dr Sen was “manufactured”.
The human rights group Amnesty International has said his trial violated international standards.
“We are deeply shocked by the judgment of a Chhattisgarh [central Indian state] court holding Dr Sen to be guilty of sedition, and sentencing him to life imprisonment,” said a statement signed by US author Professor Noam Chomsky, Indian historian Prof Romila Thapar and dozens of well-known Indian academics.
The court in Chhattisgarh found Dr Sen and three others guilty of treason and sedition and Dr Sen, who was out on bail since May 2009, was arrested. Dr Sen, a trained paediatrician, says he does not sup-port the Maoists.
A senior member of the local unit of a leading Indian human rights group, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, he worked with poor tribal people in Chhattisgarh. He ran a weekly clinic for the tribals and was piloting a community-based health programme.
Dr Sen was awarded the prestigious Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights for his services to poor and tribal communities and his commitment to civil liberties and human rights.
His efforts in public health programmes helped to bring down the infant mortality rate in the state and deaths caused by diarrhoea and dehydration, say local doctors.
Dr Sen has been outspoken about the ways in which the government is trying to tackle the Maoists in Chhattisgarh by backing a controversial civil militia of local tribals called Salwa Judum.
He has also expressed his deep concern over rising inequality in India despite the economic boom.
