New Delhi: In a major relief to Chhattisgarh schoolteacher Soni Sori, the Supreme Court on Thursday provided her permanent bail, saying she could visit her hometown Dantewada.
Sori, a middle-aged woman, was arrested in October 2011 on charges of helping the Maoists get 'protection money' from steel giant Essar.
Her case came into the limelight after it was reported that she was raped at the Dantewada police station and had stones inserted into her private parts while in custody.
"Giving electric shocks, stripping me naked, shoving stones inside me - is this going to solve the Naxal problem," she had once asked in a letter to the Supreme Court. In her many letters, Soni complained of bad health and being denied sustenance.
Human rights activists insisted that Sori was jailed for questioning violations of law by the police and security forces in the state.
"Chhattisgarh has an unwritten set of rules about how an adivasi should behave. You don't organise, you don't agitate, you don't protest against human rights violations, you don't protest against the state, and you certainly don't protest against industrial houses that are in Bastar to usher in the industrial revolution," Himanshu Kumar, member of the Chhattisgarh chapter of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) said.
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