AN INDIAN court today refused bail for a doctor sentenced to life in prison on charges of helping Maoist insurgents, in a case that has drawn international condemnation.
A court in Bilaspur, a town in the insurgency-riven state of Chhattisgarh, denied bail to Binayak Sen, a pediatrician and activist who was arrested in 2007 on charges of waging war against India.
Mahendra Dubey, Sen’s lawyer, told reporters that “the only option left to us is to go to the Supreme Court.”
Sen received a life sentence in December after prosecutors successfully argued that he helped Maoist guerrillas create an urban network and had acted as a go-between for a leftwing leader and a businessman.
He had been running health clinics and training health workers in Chhattisgarh’s tribal communities, among India’s poorest people and whose plight the Maoist rebels claim to champion.
After his sentencing in December, academics and civil rights organisations condemned the court’s decision, with Amnesty International describing him as “a prisoner of conscience.”
The Maoist movement, which began in 1967, feeds off land disputes, police brutality and corruption and is strongest in the poorest and most deprived areas of India, many of which are rich in natural resources.
