Top artistes, writers back online plea to free Varavara Rao

HYDERABAD: In a first such move, over 500 prominent personalities from across the country have issued a strongly-worded public statement, calling for the immediate bail of revolutionary poet Varvara Rao and 10 other activists, arrested in the Elgar Parishad case.

Under the aegis of the India Cultural Forum (ICF), filmmakers Aparna Sen, Soumitra Chatterjee, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Anurag Kashyap, actor Naseeruddin Shah and Jnanpith winner and author Amitav Ghosh called for “the release of activists on humanitarian grounds” at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic is raging across the country.

Speaking to TOI, filmmaker and actor Aparna Sen, who is said the continued incarceration of these activists is a human rights violation. “These activists are not convicted criminals and are not planning to flee the country. They should be granted bail immediately,” she said. Speaking of Rao, who resides in Hyderabad and is now in a high-security prison, Sen said, “He is 80-years-old and in poor health. At a time when coronavirus cases have been reported in jails, he must be given relief without delay.” Rao, who was shifted to JJ Hospital in Mumbai after he fainted in Taloja jail, has since been sent back to his cell.

Sen lamented the loss of spaces for dissent in the country, saying “this is against the spirit of democracy”, as the public statement read:

“We are very disturbed at the insistence on incarcerating eminent human rights defenders and student dissenters under such circumstances. The focus should surely not be on the suppression of dissent in our country, but on the containment of the pandemic for all, in prison and out of it.”

The other arrested activists include Sudha Bhardwaj, Shoma Sen, Anand Teltumbde, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalvez, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Sudhir Dhawale and Rona Wilson. The statement also expressed concern over the denial of bail to student activist Safoora Zargar of Jamia Millia University and human rights activist of Assam, Akhil Gogoi.

Support for Rao grew in political circles on Friday with 14 MPs, including

Kanimozhi Karunanidhi

(DMK), Komati Reddy Venkat Reddy (Congress) and Uttam Kumar Reddy (Congress) writing to Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray to secure his release. They also requested access to medical treatment for professor GN Saibaba whose health condition too is vulnerable. As voices grew louder on Friday for

Varavara Rao

’s bail, professor

K Satyanarayana

, Rao’s son-in-law said there has been an absolute lack of information regarding his condition.

“We are depending on our sources including relatives of other inmates for news about him,” he added.


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