'I don't know if he put up a front but he never let me feel his morale was down. He told me how he was tackling the problems he was facing, or if there was some way the lawyers could help, but he would always tell me not to worry with a big broad smile.'
'When there was no crime committed, everything had to be fabricated. They see it as a war, and everything is fair in love and war.'
'We were sure our appeal would succeed. We knew we could break down the evidence and show it was hollow.'
Despite being 90% handicapped, suffering from multiple ailments and dependent on a wheelchair, the former Delhi University professor has not been able to step out of the anda cell of the Nagpur Jail at all since his conviction.
Jyoti Punwani reports on the strange case of Prashant Rahi, MTech, journalist, activist, now in solitary confinement in a Maharashtra prison.
'The wrong person had to spend a banvaas of 14 years on a wrong charge.'
'Those giving voice to the voiceless should be welcomed, not punished.' 'Yes, I paid a price -- 10 years in jail -- but it wasn't only me who did so. There are many paying the price.'
His spine, his heart, his pancreas -- one by one, all his organs have weakened, given the lack of medical treatment in jail, where he is kept in the notorious Anda cell. Continuous pain, frequent fainting spells, urinary problems, have all become part of his life.
'My father lived on minimum money and helped others.' 'What was he to gain personally? No name, fame like a politician who work for votes.' 'His sort believe all humans deserve better lives.'
'Our Left is squeamish about democracy. They are so mechanical they have only dogma.'
'The way the society functions, I don't know, they are more concerned about animals than humans.'
This is not the first time the Nagpur Jail authorities are being accused of negligence towards their inmates.
'That is how our machinery operates and sees every prisoner.'
'Sanction serves the salutary object of providing safeguard to the accused from unwarranted prosecution and the agony and trauma of trial, and in the context of the stringent provisions of the UAPA, is an integral facet of due process of law.' If the report to the sanctioning officer for the first five accused in the case lacked the qualities required under the law, then for Professor Saibaba, the sanction came much after his trial had started!
Suspended Delhi University Professor G N Saibaba and five others were on Tuesday convicted by a sessions court for their links with the Maoists.
A professor of Delhi University was arrested by the Maharashtra police on Friday for his alleged links with Maoists, after questioning him more than four times in the last six months.
Maharashtra police on Tuesday raided the homes of prominent Left-wing activists in several states and arrested at least five of them for suspected Maoist links. Near simultaneous searches were carried out at the residences of prominent Telugu poet Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, activists Vernon Gonzalves and Arun Farreira in Mumbai, trade union activist Sudha Bhardwaj in Faridabad, and civil liberties activist Gautam Navalakha in New Delhi. Subsequently, Rao, Bhardwaj and Farreira were arrested. Although Navalakha was also arrested, the Delhi high court ordered police not to take him out of the national capital at least until Wednesday. According to unconfirmed reports, others whose residences were raided are Susan Abraham, Kranthi Tekula, Father Stan Swamy in Ranchi and Anand Teltumbde in Goa. The raids were carried out as part of a probe into the violence between Dalits and the upper caste Peshwas at Koregaon-Bhima village near Pune after an event called Elgar Parishad, or conclave, on December 31 last year. Here are their brief profiles:
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