G N Saibaba, former Delhi University professor, passes away

Former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba passed away on Saturday — some seven months after his acquittal in an alleged Maoist links case. The Bombay High Court had set his life sentence aside in March this year and noted that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. He was subsequently released from the Nagpur Central Jail.
According to officials, the former professor has died due to gall bladder infection and other complications. He breathed his last around 9:00 pm on Saturday. 
Earlier in August Saibaba had claimed that authorities at the Nagpur Central Jail had refused to take him to the hospital for nine months despite the left side of his body getting paralysed. Instead he was given just painkillers.
Saibaba had been lodged in the Nagpur Central Jail since 2017 after his conviction by a trial court in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district. Before that, he was in prison from 2014 to 2016 and was subsequently granted bail.
Narrating his experiences, the former DU professor, who depends on a wheelchair for mobility, told mediapersons here that he was warned by authorities that if he did not stop “talking” he would be arrested under some false case, though he did not succumb to the pressure.
He said a case was foisted against him and he was arrested.
He alleged that he was “kidnapped” from Delhi and arrested by Maharashtra Police. Senior officers of Maharashtra Police along with an investigating officer went to his house and threatened him and his family, he alleged and said there were other agencies also which accompanied the Maharashtra Police, though they did not reveal their names.
He alleged the Maharashtra Police dragged him out of the wheelchair during the course of arrest as a result of which a serious injury was caused to his hand and it also impacted the nervous system.
The wheelchair was also broken, he said. “Nagpur Medical College doctors recorded the injury caused to me and submitted a report to the High Court in this regard,” he added.