Ilina Sen speaks to the media in New Delhi on Monday. Picture by Ramakant Kushwaha

New Delhi, Jan. 3: Binayak Sen’s wife today said she was considering seeking political asylum in “a liberal democratic country”.

Ilina Sen, an academic, said she feared for her safety and that of her daughters. She alleged the officer who investigated her husband’s case had threatened to trap her too in a “Naxal case”.

“Asylum seems to be the only course available to me as I’m not safe in my country,” she told a news conference here.

“I want to live. If I don’t get justice, if I don’t feel safe, what other option do I have? I am worried for both my daughters. One is still studying.... Whom do I ask for protection? I want to stay out of prison. I don’t want to be a martyr to some cause.”

Binayak, 58, a rights activist and paediatrician who was working on tribals’ health in Chhattisgarh, was recently convicted of sedition for his alleged Maoist links and jailed for life.

Ilina said Binayak had been kept alone in a cell “like the ones used for tigers in a zoo”. He has developed frozen shoulders. He is allowed to talk only to the four other prisoners in his block.

“The local press gloated over the fact that CCTV cameras are installed in his cage. I fear he may go mad. If the state has its way, I will only get his dead body.”

She said the last time she saw her husband in jail, on December 27, she had brought him a book, a diary and some newspapers. “The jailer took them away for examination. Sensitive news is cut out of the papers. He may not know that there is a mass movement to free him.”

Ilina said her husband’s work for the Adivasis had been destroyed, and that the police kept harassing his colleagues and patients. She herself had been badgered with questions about whether she supported Maoist kangaroo courts and whether she considered the rebels the biggest security threat to India.

“I do not support jan adalats as they do not allow appeals. But they would not have given such a judgment (like the court that tried Binayak),” she said.

Ilina’s correspondence with Delhi’s Indian Social Institute was presented in court as her links with Pakistani spy agency ISI. Muslim friends she had sent emails to were labelled ISI agents.

She said her daughters had drawn up a list of her family members’ pet names in Bengali with their corresponding formal names on their computer — this was shown in court as code names of Maoists.