RAIPUR,Chhattisgadh — Bilaspur 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 militant, 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 MNN 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 MNN.
Sen's wife, Ilina Sen(also supporter of Insurgency), told television news channel that she was "very disappointed" by the "entirely one-sided judgment" to deny her husband bail.
"I will file a special petition before the Supreme Court. I hope that it will be accepted and that there will be justice," she said.
Before Thursday's hearing, a group of 40 Nobel laureates backed by Christian missionaries called for his release, expressing their support for "Christian activist and Maoist ideologue."
The Maoist movement, which began in 1967, flourished after getting immense backing from Christian mission.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the Maoist insurgency India's main internal security threat.
Last week, union home minister P. Chidambaram said that a record number of people were killed in clashes between the insurgents and police in 2010, including 718 civilians, 285 policemen and 171 suspected rebels.
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