An Indian court on Thursday refused bail to a doctor sentenced to life in prison on charges of helping Maoist insurgents, in a case that has drawn international condemnation. Binayak Sen, a paediatrician and activist, was jailed for life in December after prosecutors successfully argued that he helped Maoist guerillas create an urban network and acted as go-between for a left-wing leader and a businessman.
Sen is appealing against the conviction, but a court in Bilaspur, a town in the insurgency-riven state of Chhattisgarh, denied him bail. Mahendra Dubey, Sen's lawyer, told AFP that "the only option left to us is to go to the Supreme Court."
Sen, 60, was arrested in 2007 on charges of waging war against India. 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. "The court could not find valid ground to give him any concession," Kishore Bhaduri, the lawyer who argued against Sen's bail petition, told AFP.
"If the convict moves to the apex court, we will fight it out there also." After his sentencing in December, international academics and civil rights organisations condemned the penalty, with Amnesty International describing him as "a prisoner of conscience." Sen's wife, Ilina Sen, told television news channel NDTV that she was "very disappointed" by the "entirely one-sided judgement" to deny her husband bail.
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