By IANS,
Kolkata: Expressing shock and anguish over the life sentence given to rights activist Binayak Sen, doctors here Saturday said they would carry out an intensified campaign demanding his immediate and unconditional release.
City-based medical practitioners, who have formed an organisation ‘Free Dr. Binayak Sen campaign, Doctors in Solidarity’ to protest the conviction, urged the people to come forward and demand his release.
“Through our organisation, we have been and will be protesting against the conviction. We need to broaden this campaign and we urge all democracy loving people, cutting across political beliefs, to come forward and demand Sen’s immediate release,” organisation convener Sanjib Mukherjee told reporters.
“We are in talks with the medical fraternity in other states and plan to converge in Delhi to protest,” Mukherjee said.
The organisation has also set up a monetary fund to help Sen in his legal battle.
Sen was sentenced to life imprisonment Dec 24 after being held guilty of sedition and criminal conspiracy by a Chhattisgarh court for his alleged links with Maoists.
Sen, 60, is presently lodged in Raipur central jail after District and Sessions Court Judge B.P. Varma convicted him along with Maoist ideologue Narayan Sanyal and Kolkata-based businessman Piyush Guha for sedition and criminal conspiracy.
He filed an appeal against the conviction in the Chhattisgarh High Court Jan 6.