Patna, Sept. 13: A senior Maoist leader, at present lodged in the special central jail at Bhagalpur, has offered to donate his body for medical research.

The offer has come from Varanasi Subramaniam, a central committee member of CPI(Maoist). The rebel, in a letter to the jail superintendent, said he wanted to donate his body for medical research.

“But the body should be donated to a medical research institute only in Bengal,” the letter said. Subramaniam, who hails from Andhra Pradesh’s Prakasam district, also wishes to donate his eyes to an eye hospital separately.

“The eyes should be donated to anybody who requires them the most. But I shall be happy if my eyes are donated to a person belonging to the deprived section of the society,” the letter written on August 23 last said. The jail superintendent has sent the copy of the letter to the inspector-general of police (prisons) office in Patna for necessary action. “I am not authorised to talk to the media on such a sensitive issue,” superintendent of jail Jitendra Kumar said.

He, however, confirmed the receipt of the letter of Subramaniam, who has been lodged in a special cell from the security point of view. “We have taken all precautionary measures as three top Maoist leaders are lodged here,” he said.

Sources in the state police headquarters said such an offer has come from a Maoist leader for the first time in the state. “In the past, we have not received any letter from jail inmates willing to offer organs,” an officer said.

A senior officer of the prison department said several inmates of Beur Central Jail in Patna had offered to donate organs for the use of others around four to five years ago. “The status of those applications is not known to me,” he said.

Subramaniam, 58, was arrested along with two central committee members, Vijay Kumar Arya and Pulendu Shekhar, from Katihar district on June 30 this year by a joint police team of the Special Task Force and the district police. The Andhra Pradesh government had announced a cash reward of Rs 12 lakh on Subramaniam’s head.