By IANS
New Delhi : Octogenarian Anasuya Sen has made an appeal for freedom of her son Binayak, a doctor in Chhattisgarh district, who has been in jail since May 14. Sen, a social activist, was the all-India vice president of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties and the secretary of the Chhattisgarh chapter of the human rights organisation.
Sen was arrested for treating an ailing ultra-Left prisoner in Raipur Central Jail. The prisoner’s brother had asked Sen to look up his ageing brother, which he did with the “permission of the jail authorities”, the doctor’s mother claimed.
“The fact that the prisoner was a Naxalite gave the state an opportunity to imprison Sen under the state’s public security laws,” she said in her appeal, adding that her son was “a patriot whose entire professional life was devoted to the untiring service of the poor”.
The appeal came after the Supreme Court rejected a bail petition moved by Sen’s wife Ilina on Dec 10. The Chhattisgarh high court had earlier refused to bail Sen out.
Sen, who graduated from the Christian Medical College in Vellore and followed it up with a master’s degree in paediatrics, joined the Jawaharlal Nehru University as an assistant professor. He left JNU to work at a tuberculosis research centre and hospital run by the Friends’ Rural Centre at Hoshangabad in Madhya Pradesh.
He also worked among the miners in Chhattisgarh and joined the trade union movement launched by trade union activist Shankar Guha Neogi in the mines of Dalli-Rajhara and Nandini.
While working with the Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh, Sen set up a health centre for the miners, which grew into a 25-bed hospital. He was also involved in improving the health of tribals in the villages of Dhamtari and Bastar districts.