A group of students from Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University on Saturday afternoon staged a protest outside Maharashtra Sadan near KG Marg over the arrest of GN Saibaba. Saibaba, a DU professor, was arrested by Maharashtra Police for his alleged links with Maoists.
The protesters, who were around 60 to 100 in number reached the location at around 12 noon and staged a demonstration. They raised slogans and demanded the immediate release of the professor.The Delhi University professor was arrested on Friday morning on charges of allegedly being a member of a banned terrorist organisation (CPI-Maoist), providing logistics and helping in recruitment for the group, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Gadchiroli, Ravindra Kadam had claimed. The demonstrators also handed over a memorandum to the Resident Commissioner of Maharashtra Sadan, which was addressed to the Maharashtra Chief Minister Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan.
In the memorandum, the student stated that the arrest is an attempt to ‘frame him’ and condemned the ‘illegal’ detention. The students demanded his immediate release. The name of Saibaba cropped up after the arrest of Jawaharlal Nehru University student Hemant Mishra who had claimed before the probe agencies that he was acting as a courier between the professor and Maoists holed up in Abujmad forests in Chhattisgarh, official sources said.
Meanwhile, the magistrate’s court in Gadchiroli on Saturday remanded Saibaba, in judicial custody till May 23. He was produced before the Judicial Magistrate who remanded him in 14-days judicial custody, said the investigating officer Suhas Bawche. Police did not seek his custody immediately as the lock-ups in the district did not have the facilities for a disabled person, Bawche said, adding, police custody would be sought once the necessary facilities were installed. For now he would be lodged in a jail in Nagpur.