India: alleged senior Maoist leader arrested
A World to Win News Service. 29 September 2009.
A special police unit in Delhi has arrested Kobad Ghandy, accused of being a senior member of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Although the authorities announced the arrest on 20 September and first took him before a magistrate the following day, a statement by the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP) says that he was actually grabbed on 17 September and held in secret, illegal detention. During that time he underwent harsh interrogation, including being tied hand and foot to a table. He was subjected to sleep deprivation for three days and nights. The 63-year-old Ghandy suffers from several serious medical conditions and the CRPP accuses the police of "playing with his life" by refusing him adequate medical care and the special diet he requires.
Ghandy was seized by a half-dozen intelligence agents at Bhikaji Cama Place in South Delhi while waiting at a bus terminal. The authorities have told the media that Ghandy was in charge of the outlawed CPI(M)'s publications and its work in urban areas. According to an extensive profile on the BBC website (23 September), "Mr Ghandy has cases against him pertaining to being part of a banned outfit, organising demonstrations and writing political materials for the party." The press has reported that he may be turned over to the authorities in the state of Jharkhand to face other charges. "Ghandy, it is alleged, 'preached Maoism in Pune, Nagpur, Mumbai, Nashik, Raipur, Patna, Bhubaneswar and Ranchi.'" (expressindia. com, 23 September)
Ghandy was the husband of Anuradha Shanbag, a former academic turned professional revolutionary who died of cerebral malaria contracted while teaching classes in the forests of Jharkhand in April 2008. She was a member of the CPI(M) Central Committee. They spent several decades working in remote rural areas, first in Nagpur in the late 1970s and early '80s, with the Committee to Protect Democratic Rights, and then allegedly clandestinely in several states. Ghandy, from Mumbai, a graduate of one of India's most prestigious schools, is said to have first become revolutionary- minded while studying accountancy in England. He became active upon his return to India during the "emergency" period of the mid-1970s, a particularly dangerous time for revolutionaries when Prime Minister Indira Ghandi declared the suspension of constitutional rights and imprisoned many Maoists.
According to the CRPP statement circulated at a press conference held at the Delhi Press Club, he has not yet been given a court date. He suffers from cardiac problems, a severe intestinal illness that means he must only drink boiled water, and possible prostate cancer requiring medication. The CRPP is demanding that he get adequate medical care and diet, a transfer out of his present overcrowded cell (a one-person unit now shared by four) where the conditions contribute to further ill health, reading and writing materials, and the status of political prisoner.
(CRPP, 185/3, 4th floor, Zaki Nagar, New Delhi-25, India)
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