After being sentenced to life imprisonment by a Maharashtra court, Delhi University professor GN Saibaba’s health has “considerably worsened”, a press release from Amnesty International India stated. Saibaba, who was convicted for links with the Communist Party of India (Maoist) on March 7, is wheelchair bound as 90 per cent of his body is paralysed. Amnesty has alleged that Saibaba is being denied “potentially life-saving medical treatment” at the Nagpur central Jail (where he is being held), thus putting his health at “grave risk”.

In a letter to his wife written on March 14, Saibaba said he is unable to digest food due to a problem with his pancreas. “This problem has become severe as I have to eat something to take huge amounts of medicines and if I eat anything I am not able to digest,” he wrote in the letter.

Saibaba’s lawyer Surendra Gadling claimed that when he met the professor on March 21, he appeared “really weak” and in “immense pain because of acute pancreatitis”. He went on to say Saibaba needed to be admitted to a hospital for surgery as facilities for the same weren’t available at the Nagpur central jail.

However, an official at the jail told Amnesty that prison doctors were attending to Saibaba and that he was “fine”.