GN Saibaba: India frees disabled academic jailed for Maoist links

A handicapped educational was cleared of all charges by an Indian court after four others received life sentences for allegedly having ties to Maoist rebels.

GN Saibaba, who is paralyzed from the waist down, was found guilty in 2017 of waging an insurrection against the position.

He has refuted every claim made against him.

In 2022, a jury in Maharashtra state found him innocent, but India’s highest court had requested a re-hearing and had suspended the judgment.

The Bombay High Court’s Nagpur chair acquitted Mr. Saibaba and others on Tuesday and upheld their living words.

Mr. Saibaba, a former professor at Delhi University, was detained for the first time in 2014 after being accused of belonging to the outlawed Communist Party of India ( Maoist ).

Communist rebels claim that tribal people and the poor in remote areas are battling socialist rule and rights.

Mr. Saibaba had traveled to cultural areas and strongly fought against the actions of an anti-Maoist militia and the Indian military.

He, however, denied having any ties to the Maoist Communist Party of India.

However, a regional jury determined that he had committed” criminal conspiracy andwaging war against the nation” in 2017.

The judge stated in his ruling that” the imprisonment for life is hardly a sufficient retribution for the accused” and that “even though he is physically handicapped, he is psychologically meet.”

The Bombay High Court cleared him of all costs in 2022, but the Maharashtra federal challenged the ruling in the Supreme Court, which later revoked the ruling.

The accused had been found guilty of a “very significant” crime “against the independence and dignity of the country,” according to the court, and the high court had never addressed the circumstances surrounding the case.

The wheelchair-bound advocate’s ongoing arrest has been criticized by activists and a human rights organization as unfair.

It bore” all the marks of a state trying to silence a crucial speech,” according to UN Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor.