Awaiting trial for six years, Students' right activist charged under UAPA dies in custody

Vartha Bharati | 25-01-2021 | 15:59:00 IST

Kanchan Nanaware (Photo: thewire.in)

New Delhi: A students’ rights activist who was arrested in 2014 for her alleged role in the Maoist movement and was later charged under UAPA succumbed to her heart and brain ailment in the state-run Sassoon Hospital in Pune.

Kanchan Nanware from Chandrapur District was arrested in 2014 and her attempts to secure bail over the last few years were constantly rejected.

According to a report published in The Wire, In the past two years, Nanaware, through her lawyer, had moved both the sessions court and Bombay high court for bail on several occasions. “Each time, it was rejected,” her lawyer Parth Shah says. In October, an application was moved before the Bombay high court on medical grounds, and her deteriorating health condition along with the doctors’ recommendation for a heart transplant was placed on record before the court. But the application remains pending.

When her bail application was heard before the high court, the court was told that a heart transplant was the only option available to ensure she survives. The court had even formed a committee to opine over her health condition and the need for urgent medical care. But even such an urgent matter of life and death took months to be heard – during which time she passed away.

Of the nine cases that Nanaware was booked in, she was already acquitted in six cases. Three cases – one each in Gadchiroli, Pune and Gondiya – were still pending. Over the six years that she spent in different Maharashtra prisons, she was essentially an undertrial prisoner. Nanaware was arrested along with her husband Arun Belke and booked under several sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Belke continues to be in jail.

Nanaware, who was born with a congenital heart illness, had developed a brain ailment in the past week. Her family and lawyers allege that neither the jail nor hospital authorities informed them till her brain surgery was conducted on January 16, The Wire’s report added.

Nanaware’s lawyer Rohan Nahar says that even in the cases that led to her arrest in 2014, she was never convicted. “But it is unfortunate that her health condition did not push the courts to give a favorable order and grant her bail. She was accused of Maoist activities and the tragedy is we would never know whether she was really involved. She was punished through her incarceration,” Nahar told The Wire.

With Inputs from The Wire

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