Binayak Sen: Justice denied

Friday, December 24. The conviction was over in 20 minutes. Judge B.P. Verma read aloud: "Therefore, the accused... are guilty of promoting Naxali... guilty of conspiracy to commit sedition." The sentence: rigorous life imprisonment. Dr Binayak Sen sat frozen with shock as a collective sigh of grief enveloped him. Binayak Sen is brought to court for the December 24 reading of the 92-page verdictWithin 10 minutes a police van lumbered toward the Central Jail in Raipur with new prisoners. Since May 2007, Sen has been detained without proper charges for seven months, repeatedly denied bail, put in solitary confinement for weeks, spent a total of two years in jail to be released unconditionally on bail in May 2009. December 24: How it happened Before the verdict, hundreds of policemen started flooding the city. A sense of unease made Sen visit his ailing mother the week before. On the day of the verdict, his wife said: "Take your shawl and your medicines? you never know." 7-11 a.m. A man leans against a bike and stares at their flat. As the Sens leave for the court, he makes a furtive call and speeds off. 11 a.m. Sen, his wife and two daughters leave for the district court at Shastri Chowk. 12 p.m. Court surrounded by policemen. Inside, onlookers, guards, well-wishers from across the world and media jostle for space. 12:30 p.m. Sen surrounded by well-wishers. Looks relaxed. 12:49 p.m. Narayan Sanyal and Pijush Guha reach court under heavy security. 1:00 p.m. Enter judge B.P. Verma. 1:20 p.m. Conviction 1:30 p.m. All three convicts taken to Central Jail. 3:00 p.m. Sen, and Guha and Sanyal brought back from jail to court. 3:30 p.m. 92-page verdict read out by Verma. 3:30 p.m. Police and intelligence alert; court surrounded. 3:50 p.m. Finally taken to jail.The irony is that no one knows that prison better than Sen-a specialist in child health from Christian Medical College, Vellore. For the last 29 years, Sen has been in and out of prisons-treating prisoners, upholding their rights, protecting them against custodial violence-as an active member of Jaya Prakash Narayan's Peoples' Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). His mother, who witnessed his passion for justice even as a four-year-old, fondly calls him a "karmayogi".At 3 pm, the "convicts" were brought back to the court. To listen to the 92-page judgment of Verma (a judge awaiting confirmation in the lower judiciary). The Acts invoked were Sections 124 (A) and 120 (B) of ipc; Sections 8(1), (2), (3), (5) of Chhattisgarh Special Public Safety Act 2005; Section 39 (2) of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967. In simple words, they mean sedition and conspiracy for sedition.Sen has been incarcerated in a 'maximum security cell'. "That means five solitary cells, cages really, facing a courtyard,? says his wife, Ilina, who met him on Monday, December 27. He can step out into the courtyard but not beyond. And read scissored-out newspapers. "I met him in the jailor's room.? Sen is allowed visitors once every 15 days. Can anyone apart from family meet him? The jailors are yet to make a decision.At the root of Sen's "arrest" in 2007 and the conviction now are three people: Sen; Pijush Guha, who owns a bidi factory near Kolkata and frequented Chhattisgarh for tendu leaf; and Narayan Sanyal, a suspected Maoist ideologue. What connected the three, said the police, was that Sen "couriered" Naxalite letters and journals between Sanyal and Guha. Was he just a soft target, a scapegoat? Not really. At least, his friends and family don't think so. What possibly brought the law down on him was a report he had prepared on the Salwa Judum, the much-touted "spontaneous reaction" against Maoist oppression by tribals in 2006 ("Where the State Makes War on its Own People: a report on the violation of people's rights during the Salwa Judum campaign in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh"). While the state tom-tommed Salwa Judum as a turning point in the fight against Naxalism, Sen's report made three serious allegations: that it's not a spontaneous people's movement, but a state-organised anti-insurgency campaign; that the government resorted to clearing villages on a large scale, turning tens of thousands of people into refugees; and that it has escalated violence on all fronts. "The rule of law has completely broken down," Sen pointed out.But the rule of law broke down even worse for Sen. "One of the reasons he got unconditional bail in May 2009 was that they couldn't provide any evidence," says Ilina. "Now the same 'evidence' has led to his conviction." Take, for instance, the case of 'Evidence A37'. During a search of Sen's house in 2007, it just wasn't there. "The police got their own videography done. And I took the permission to do another-to make sure nothing was planted as evidence," she says. "Whatever the police seized had to be entered in a seizure memo, signed by both Binayak and the police authorities." In the current conviction, however, an unsigned letter turned up as 'Evidence A 37' and it did not figure in the memo. The police explanation is: "Dusri kagaz me chipak gaya hoga (It must have got stuck with another paper)." Strangely enough, the A37 "letter" is written on fresh, unfolded paper that looks like a new computer printout. "If it's a letter he was couriering how can it be that fresh?" Ilina asks. The video also shows all evidence was taken away in unsealed bags.Sen's ordeal began in the summer of 2007, when wild rumours, random phone calls and hectic speculation quickly crystallised into his arrest. It started with a journalist calling to enquire about bazaar gossip on his alleged links with Naxalites. Then the papers in Raipur started reporting that "a well-known person from the city was absconding" and that the police were looking for him. The charge of couriering letters for the Maoists gained strength. Sen asked his journalist friends to publish his cellphone number in newspapers ("If somebody wants to talk to me they can call me. I will explain"). It was printed, and nobody called. Yet the speculation didn't stop. By the time Sen was worried enough to meet his lawyer at the Bilaspur High Court, a constable was waiting at the door. The friendly "inquiry" turned into an arrest. The charge? Nothing. It came later, after seven months in jail.Chhattisgarh Director-General of Police Vishwa Ranjan was not involved in the house search, but was "very much there during the chargesheeting". Ask him why Sen was kept behind bars without proper charges for such a long time, and he says: "Judicial custody sometimes lasts for even five years, while an investigation is on." While he insists that it is "against all ethics and democratic norms to comment on a verdict," he does make one more critical comment: "The case is built on circumstantial evidence. And that is much more solid than witnesses." They don't care about the quality of evidence. They have to make a conviction and that's that. It's the level of vengefulness that has shocked me the most.That's where lawyers come in. "You can't base a conviction on circumstantial evidence," says advocate Sudha Bharadwaj, who fought the case for Sen. "Unless there is no other explanation for the circumstances." Going by that, the claim that Sen couriered letters for Sanyal and Guha falls through. As jailors testified, all the meetings with Sanyal were supervised. Sen gave a perfectly plausible explanation for why he was meeting Sanyal. Ilina quotes from her husband's written statement: "I was approached by the family of Mr Narayan Sanyal to look after his health? after he was brought to Raipur jail in 2006? It was brought to my notice that the surgery on his hands... was being delayed due to communication problems between the jail and the doctors? I played a role in facilitating his surgery? During this period there was considerable correspondence between the prisoner's family, the jail administration and medical authorities, of which copies were marked to me."Another significant point is that the strength of the police prosecution lies in witnesses, or rather a singular witness-Anil Kumar Singh. He was supposedly a passerby who overheard a conversation between Guha and the police about a letter while Guha was being arrested. Although any statement made to the police in a custodial situation is inadmissible as evidence and although Guha contended it was planted by the police-the witness held sway. It was also ignored that the police cited two separate places for Guha's arrest-Mahindra Hotel and Station Road. Singh has since been untraceable. Unfortunate, since his evidence has destroyed 40-something Guha's life. His mother died this year and the court refused to grant him parole for the last rites. "The case was built up on theory. It's absolutely not proved that letters were being passed," says Bharadwaj. "The hearsay of a supposed confession is being relied upon. All kinds of other unsubstantiated tit-bits were drawn up to make a case. The basic case has gone."Hasn't it been too long since Sen's report on Salwa Judum for the establishment to be still enraged with him? Ilina believes that it's tough to draw a neat line between Salwa Judum and "state embarrassment" at critical national and international scrutiny. Welcome to Chhattisgarh, a place that Sen chose as his field in 1981, when he joined Shankar Guha Niyogi and worked toward adivasi healthcare-low cost hospitals, health programmes and the Mitanin concept-a role model for India's National Rural Health Mission. It was in 1995 that the Sens chose it as their nest. "It's no longer the Chhattisgarh Binayak and I fell in love with," says Ilina. "It's now a separate state and we can't relate to the moneyed arrogance that has now come in," she says. "Development is the new buzzword here. But it means loads of fancy hotels, five malls, pvrs, Inox? you name it." Raipur is the new Singapore-wannabe.It takes a lot to wipe the smile off Sen's face. On Friday, it did fade out, but Ilina reports after her meeting with the doctor in the jailor's room on December 27, Sen is a lot more calm. "He was happy to learn about the rising tide of protest against his conviction around the country and the world." But she is in a hurry: "I teach in Wardha. I am constantly on the move and doing the legal work at the same time." She has won her battle with cancer this year. Now the other, harder battle of rescuing her husband has started.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Dec 31, 2010 00:00 IST--- ENDS ---

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Binayak Sen: Justice denied

Ilina Sen says level of vengefulness against the Chhattisgarh rights activist shocked her the most.

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