Appropriate Medical Treatment For Varavara Rao Sought

The Human Rights Forum (HRF) appeals to concerned authorities to ensure that the well-known Marxist revolutionary poet and writer P Varavara Rao is given appropriate and expert medical treatment immediately. By all accounts the health of Varavara Rao, who is 80 years, is precarious. Currently lodged in Taloja Central Prison, Navi Mumbai, he has been incarcerated as an undertrial since nearly two years.

Varavara Rao suffers from several ailments including a heart condition, prostrate enlargement, vertigo, hemorrhoids and hypertension. He is presently diagnosed as suffering from low levels of potassium and sodium. In recent conversations over the phone with his family he has been unusually incoherent. It is evident that his life is at extreme risk and he requires to be shifted out of prison to a specialised hospital without further delay.

Given the ongoing COVID-19 threat and Varavara Rao’s co-morbidities, it is imperative that the Court, the government of Maharashtra and the Central government intervene and ensure that there is no further peril to his fragile health condition. We appeal to concerned authorities to also allow his family to be with him till such time he fully recovers.