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Parsiana
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Events & Personalities

Free at last?

By Farrokh Jijina · December 21, 2017
The release of Maoist sympathizer Kobad Ghandy (pictured) from Visakhapatnam Jail on December 12, 2017 has for the time being ended an eight-year stint behind bars. Many lawyers and supporters made several attempts to obtain bail and get him out from jail, till he was finally granted it. Though Ghandy had been acquitted in several cases, there are still some pending.
Gandhy was married to Anuradha, who passed away in 2008 of cerebral malaria, while working with tribal women in Jharkhand. Kobad’s sister Mahrouk Vevaina stated after his release that he was staying with his lawyer in Visakhapatnam and had to adhere to certain bail conditions. A family friend Diana Ratnagar counseled Gandhi not to neglect his health and to take care. "He is free now and feels good,” she stated in reply to a query from Parsiana.
In letters to Parsiana, Ghandy had narrated his ordeal, especially in Tihar Jail, where he was confined for almost seven years. "Though the Delhi trial is nearing its end, the learned judge, in September 2015, considered my health conditions so serious as to grant me three months’ interim bail. Let alone avail of this bail to get proper treatment (impossible in jail), I will now be taken from one court/jail to another all over the country, which is nothing but an attempt to kill me,” he wrote in one such letter (see "Release me...” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, June 7, 2016).
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