Nagpur: Former Delhi University Professor G N Saibaba, who is serving life sentence In Nagpur’s Central for links with the Maoists, has written to the Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao for a transfer. He says he cannot cope up the biting cold and with the adverse conditions
Deputy Inspector General of prisons, (Nagpur), Yogesh Desai, confirmed that Saibaba had applied for transfer and that the file was with the government. Jail sources said, he wanted to be shifted to either Delhi or Hyderabad.
On March 7 this year Saibaba was sentenced to life imprisonment by a sessions court in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district. The court had also found four others guilty of waging war against the country and supporting the ideology of the banned organisation – CPI (Maoist).
Gadchiroli Sessions Judge Suryakant Shinde sentenced Saibaba and four others – JNU student Hem Mishra, former journalist Prashant Rahi, Mahesh Tirke and Pandu Narote – to suffer life imprisonment, while the sixth accused Vijay Tirke was sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment.
After Mishra and two others were caught with some letters and a memory card which, according to police, contained incriminating documents about CPI (Maoist), Saibaba, who is wheel-chair-bound with 90 per cent disability, was picked up from his Delhi residence in 2013 .
A raid was also conducted at Saibaba’s house and more such incriminating material found, according to police. Saibaba was arrested in May 2014 on charges of links with Maoists by Maharashtra Police.
According to the prosecution, Hem Mishra, Mahesh Tirki and Pandu Narote had taken Rs 5 lakh from a top Maoist commander Narmada Akka from the jungles of Gadchiroli. That money was allegedly to be delivered to Saibaba in Delhi for spreading the Maoist ideology in urban areas. Public prosecutor had presented 23 witnesses and 41articles, including about 3 TB of data contained in hard disks recovered from Saibaba’s residence, in the court.
in a letter to his wife Vasantha in October, the former DU professor said he was frightened to think of the coming winter in the jail. “I am already shivering with fever. I don’t have a blanket, sweater or jacket. As the temperature goes down, I feel excruciating pain in my legs and left hand. It is impossible for me to survive the winter that starts from November,” he said.
In the letter Saibaba urged his wife to finalise his legal counsel and file for bail application at the earliest, warning that if this was not done, the situation would go out of hand.
