Sinlung /
15 May 2014

Sharmila To Appear Before Delhi Court

Imphal, May 15 : An Imphal court has allowed activist Irom Sharmila Chanu to appear before the court in New Delhi in connection with a pending case over a hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in 2006.

On Tuesday, the court granted permission to the superintendent of Manipur Central Jail to produce Sharmila before the Delhi court on May 28. The jail authorities would have to produce her before the local court and submit her health (mental and physical fitness) status report on May 21.

Sharmila will be flown to New Delhi on May 27 and produced before the metropolitan magistrate the next day, a source said. She would be accompanied by a doctor, two nurses, a women police team and two jail officials in New Delhi.

Demanding repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, Sharmila has been fasting since November 2000. At present, she is being forced-fed through her nose in the security ward of the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS) close to her Kongpal Kongkham Leikai residence in Imphal East.

In October, 2006, she had shifted her stir to New Delhi to draw the attention of national-level leaders and the international community. The Delhi Police had registered a case against her under Section 309 (attempt of commit suicide) of the IPC. In March 2007, she returned to Imphal and continued her fast.

Besides granting Sharmila's production before the Delhi court, the CJM also heard a chargesheet filed against her by the Manipur Police.

For the first time, the state government's prosecution has submitted a chargesheet against Sharmila seeking her punishment under Section 309 of the IPC. As no chargesheet was filed against her till now, she was never convicted of attempting to commit suicide.

Sharmila said her struggle is for the cause of human rights and not an attempt to commit suicide as the police have been falsely claiming.

Noted human rights lawyer Khaidem Mani, appearing for Sharmila, said she is agitating democratically without trying to end her life. The court has fixed May 21 as the next date for hearing the charge against her.

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