
Sudha’s health deteriorated because of the stress she is facing “due to her two-year-long incarceration with no trial in sight,” says her daughter
Clarion India
NEW DELHI – After Telugu poet-activist Varavara Rao, another human rights activist Sudha Bharadwaj, who has been arrested in the Elgar Parishad case, has fallen sick in jail.
Her daughter Mayesha said that her mother had developed heart disease triggered by stress due to her imprisonment and this, she felt, could also lead to a heart attack.
“Doctors consulted explained such condition…as serious that could lead to a heart attack. The medical report obtained from the jail does not clarify when this condition was diagnosed, nor does it explain the basis for this diagnosis,” Mayesha was quoted by Indian Express as saying.
In a press note released on Wednesday, she revealed that a jail medical report of July 23, given to her family, stated that her mother was suffering from Ischemic Heart Disease, a heart problem caused by narrowing of arteries resulting in reduced blood flow to the heart muscle.
She said that her mother’s health deteriorated because of the stress she is facing “due to her two-year-long incarceration with no trial in sight”. Sudha was taken into custody on 27 October, 2018 after nearly two months of house arrest.
On Sunday, friends, colleagues, family members held an online gathering to demand her release. “The recent heart condition adds to her existing ailment of diabetes, blood pressure and a past history of pulmonary tuberculosis, making her extremely vulnerable and susceptible to infections of covid-19. At a time of a pandemic, each day spent in an unsafe, crowded place is exposing a person with co-morbidities to unnecessary health risks,” they said in a statement.
Activists, who have worked with Sudha at the Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha for years, sought a decisive hearing for her release at the earliest on the grounds of her vulnerability to coronavirus disease infection within the jail surroundings, and demanded full access to her medical history in jail and all diagnostic notes.
Earlier, the Bombay High Court on Tuesday directed the Maharashtra government to provide copies of the latest medical reports of Sudha, Anand Teltumbde and Vernon Gonsalves, accused in the Elgar Parishad case, to their families, lawyers and the NIA before the next hearing on August 28.
Sudha was arrested along with 11 activists over their alleged links with Maoists and their alleged involvement in the Bhima Koregaon violence which happened on January 1, 2018.