Varavara Rao's health has worsened in jail, informs family

Poet, activist, and writer Varavara Rao, who has been in imprisonment since 2018, is reported to have become very ill and his family protests they have not been given proper report of his health condition. According to a social media post by a close family friend, he spoke to his wife earlier in the day, and was evidently hallucinating. Another person, a co-accused, who took the phone from him, informed the family that Varavara Rao stays in delirium and is very ill and needs to be admitted to a hospital.

Varavara Rao has had a fall in the jail in May and since then his already delicate state further worsened; he was unconscious and was hospitalised. The family was hoping to acquire an immediate bail. However, this was refused by the court.

According to a report in The Wire, the family claims that in order to oppose their bail application, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had moved him back to the prison, abruptly stopping his medication in the process.

Rao has been in Yerawada jail since June 2018, and is one among the 11 accused in the Bhima Koregaon case. In mid-April, around 40 eminent poets from India wrote a letter to the prime minister requesting for the release of the 80-year-old poet who was suffering from multiple ailments and ran a risk of infection in the crowded jail. Even while, the government ordered to provide bail to many prisoners, the aforesaid eleven prisoners were refused bail.