Can’t live without teaching, want my job back: Acquitted ex-DU prof G N Saibaba

New Delhi:Former Delhi University professor G N Saibaba demanded that he be reinstated by the varsity and compensated for the lost years of service following his acquittal by the Bombay High Court in a Maoist links case.

The Committee for the Defence and Release of Dr GN Saibaba comprising academicians, lawyers and Left politicians demanded his reinstatement and compensation for all the six people who were released from the Nagpur Central Jail after the court declared in its judgement that the prosecution failed to establish charges against them.

Addressing a press conference here, the 58-year-old said he can’t live without teaching and wants to resume his job as a professor. Saibaba was terminated from his service from DU’s Ram Lal Anand College in 2021 after being implicated in the case.

He said he still feels as if he is in a jail cell after spending seven years in prison.

He was released from the Nagpur Central Jail on Thursday, two days after his acquittal.

Talking about his family, he said they survived only on hope but regretted not being able to meet his mother on her deathbed and claimed he was denied bail to perform her last rites.

“Instead of going to the hospital, I chose to speak to the press because you supported me. My family faced stigma and I was called a terrorist,” he said with tears in his eyes.

Recalling his “jail ordeal” Saibaba claimed he was forced to live in cramped conditions and was denied medicines and treatment prescribed by doctors for his ailing health.

“I was imprisoned in a jail which has a capacity of 1,500 inmates but 3,000 people were lodged there in cramped conditions. There was no space to even sleep. Without a wheelchair I use to struggle to use toilet, take bath or even fetch myself a class of water.

There was not even a single ramp in the prison for people like me,” he said in a chocked voice.