Binayak Sen walks out of jail, says I am no traitor

[1]

Human rights activist Binayak Sen, who walked out of jail here on Monday, three days after the apex court granted him bail, said he was not a traitor and that the sedition charges against him should be dropped.

"I know in my heart that I have never betrayed my countrymen. I never accepted that charge of traitor in my heart. After the apex court order, the whole question of sedition should be taken off the panel," Sen told reporters here.

He also welcomed Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily's statement that he will refer sections of the law dealing with sedition to the Law Commission for a relook.

Thanking the people for their support, Sen said: "Many people like me are facing similar ordeal in the state."

There was jubilation and enormous relief amongst the crowd waiting outside the Raipur jail, where the 61-year-old medical doctor had been undergoing his life imprisonment.

As Sen walked out of the prison, his family, including his elderly mother, wife and daughters, hugged him. So did some other supporters as emotions ran high.

He was sentenced by a Chhattisgarh trial court December 24, 2010 for sedition. Sen was accused of acting as a courier between Maoist ideologue Narayan Sanyal and Kolkata-based businessman Piyush Guha, both of whom have been jailed for life.

Sen had challenged the February 10 order of the high court rejecting his bail plea.

Sen said he will continue in his human rights work in Chhattisgarh and rest of the country.

He also called for immediate closing of the government-organised anti-Maoist group Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh.

The Raipur sessions court, while granting him bail, said that he could not leave the country without its permission.

He was also asked to surrender his passport and ordered to furnish a bond and surety of Rs.50,000 each.

On April 15, the Supreme Court backed him and said in a scathing observation that a person does not become a Gandhian just because he is found with a biography of Mahatma Gandhi.

"We are in a democratic country. At best, he (Binayak Sen) is a sympathiser. There are many sympathisers of a cause," the apex court bench of Justices Harjit Singh Bedi and Chandramauli Kumar Prasad then said.

The court ridiculed the state's submission that Sen was actively involved in spreading disharmony and disaffection against the state.

"Distribution and circulation and even possession of (Maoist ideology and propaganda material) does not amount to sedition," the court said.

"Even in the worst case scenario, that he (Sen) was in possession of these documents, does not make him guilty of sedition," it had said.

The state government, in its reply to Sen's petition in the high court, said he "has the same ideology as that of CPI-Maoist (Communist Party of India-Maoist) and he is addressed as comrade by hardcore Naxalites (Maoists)".