'There's no evidence against Sen'

Dec 24, 2010 |

IANS

Tags:

New Delhi: Human rights activists on Friday reacted with shock at rights campaigner Binayak Sen being held guilty of sedition and conspiracy by a Chhattisgarh court, with many saying that there was 'no evidence' against him.

"I am absolutely shocked at the judgement. We never expected this judgement because there was not a shred of evidence against him. This is a sad day for our Indian democracy," Mahipal Singh, secretary of the People's Union For Civil Liberties (PUCL), of which Sen is vice president, told IANS.

"How can a human rights activist be held guilty on false charges by the prosecution," he asked.

Raipur District and Sessions Court judge B.P. Varma on Friday found Sen guilty on a variety of counts and also under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act.

Sen was arrested in 2007 from Bilaspur for alleged links with Maoist ideologue Narayan Sanyal but was released in May 2009 at the behest of the Supreme Court.

PUCL general secretary Kavita Srivastava added: "This is a shocking judgment. But he will get justice. We will fight for him."

A very upset Harish Dhawan, an activist, said: "This is the worst possible kind of justice ever. It's shocking. There is no evidence against him. He has been held just because he has opposed the Salwa Judum (movement) and even the Supreme Court has said so."

"We have come to a real low in Indian democracy today," he added.

Salwa Judum is a Chhattisgarh sponsored counter-insurgency and anti-Maoist people's movement

Mahipal Singh said PUCL would await the detailed judgement before deciding on the future legal course of action.

"We have just got the summary of the judgment, so it will take some time for us to decide the legal course of action. We will also plan a mass movement for justice for Binayak Sen," he said.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/49027" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-6bd0edf1353b480df9a5458e76106237" value="form-6bd0edf1353b480df9a5458e76106237" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="88909545" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>