Three days after 71-year-old Gokarakonda Suryavathi died, on August 1, with her last wish to see her son GN Saibaba unfulfilled, the former Delhi University professor was denied parole once again. He had sought parole to go attend the post funeral ceremonies of his mother. She had succumbed to cancer soon after Saibaba was denied permission by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court, last week, to go see her as she had desired before she slipped into a coma. Her funeral, reported Indian Express, took place in Hyderabad on Saturday. Saibaba’s brother had requested the jail authorities to release him to attend the post-funeral rituals.
While Saibaba, by now, has been denied bail in March and July, to seek specialised medical treatment, and to see his ailing mother when it was still possible, this time The Indian Express quotes the Jail Superintendent Anup Kumar Kumre saying, “We have refused him permission to attend the rituals since he is a different kind of inmate”. The reporter asked to explain he meant by a “different kind of inmate”, but then Kumar said, “I can’t elaborate further on that.” The IE quotes him further, “Some inmates don’t return after being released on parole or furlough. If he had been earlier released on parole or furlough and had returned in due course, we might have thought of releasing him this time. But they can approach the High Court for bail again.” On approaching the High Court for bail again, Saibaba’s lawyer Sorde has told IE instead of that, they were planning to go for death parole.
Prof GN Saibaba is not given an opportunity even for a video conference with his ailing mother and then the old lady died without fulfilling her last wish. Whom I should remind that we very often boast of living in the largest democracy of the world?
— Ajit Kumar Bhuyan (@AjitKrBhuyan) August 2, 2020
SabrangIndia had earlier reported that the National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD), a cross disability rights organisation, too wrote to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) seeking its urgent intervention to help the ailing, wheelchair bound Professor G.N. Saibaba. The NPRD has asked that Prof Saibaba be shifted to “a super-speciality hospital for treatment, before it is too late.”
In Delhi, Prof G.N. Saibaba’s wife, rights activist A.S. Vasantha Kumari, had said that, “His immunity is very low and if he gets Covid-19 it is a death sentence for him.” Then she had also shared that Saibaba’s aged mother, a cancer patient, had been asking about him even as her own health was deteriorating day by day.
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