New Delhi:
The Supreme Court will today take up the bail plea hearing of Soni Sodi, a woman from Chhattisgarh who has been jailed on charges of being a Naxal.
A tribal teacher from Chhattisgarh, Soni Sodi claims she has been falsely implicated in a number of cases linking her to Naxal activities. She has filed a petition in the Supreme Court claiming that she is being tortured by the Chhattisgarh Police.
(Read: A reporter's account of Soni Sodi, arrested for being a 'hard-core Naxal')A suspected Naxal conduit accused of receiving "protection money" from the Essar group for the rebels, Sodi was arrested on October 4 in south Delhi by a Chhattisgarh police team. She was then taken to Dantewada for interrogation but was not produced before court. The Chhattisgarh police claimed she fell in a bathroom. "I will reveal very soon the cause behind my injuries," Sodi had earlier said. She has alleged that she was being treated like a thief and a dacoit by the police.
Earlier this month, the top court had sought response from the state government to the allegation that Sodi "was dying" in a state hospital due to torture by the police. She was recently shifted to the Bhimrao Ambedkar Hospital in Raipur after doctors reported that her condition had worsened.
A bench of justices Altamas Kabir and HL Gokhale asked Chhattisgarh's standing counsel Atul Jha to seek necessary instructions and information from the state government on the allegations. The court passed the direction after senior counsel Colin Gonsalves, appearing for Sodi, alleged that the tribal woman was on the verge of death due to police torture in custody.
He said Sodi, in fact, had filed her petition in the apex court prior to her arrest but before the matter could be taken up for hearing by the court, she was arrested and subjected to physical torture in Chhattisgarh.
The senior counsel has said Sodi was willing to face any probe by any agency other than the Chhattisgarh police to prove her innocence. (with PTI Inputs)