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Sodi Sambo can now have her treatment done in New Delhi. Five days after the 28-year-old tribal woman from Gompad village in Dantewada district was detained by the Chhattisgarh government in suspicious circumstances, the Supreme Court on Friday directed the state administration to permit her to travel to New Delhi.
Sambo, believed to be a victim of Operation Green Hunt (launched by the government against insurgents in Chhattisgarh last year), sustained bullet injuries in her leg last October.
After undergoing preliminary tests, she was operated at the St Stephen's Hospital in New Delhi on October 20 and rods were inserted in her leg. The bullet had smashed her tibia bone.
She was told to come back to New Delhi a year later for further treatment. However, she was detained by Chhattisgarh cops on January 2 and taken for questioning.
Himanshu Kumar, a noted Gandhian from Dantewada who heads the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, was accompanying Sambo at the time of her arrest. Though he was later allowed to go, Sambo remained in police custody for want of her statement.
In their petition before the Supreme Court, advocates Colin Gonsalves and Divya Jyoti pleaded that their client had been wrongfully detained and that she be allowed to come to Delhi.
Disposing of the plea moved by the People's Union for Civil Liberties and the People's Union for Democratic Rights, the apex court told the state government not to obstruct or create any obstacle for Sambo's travel to the national capital for treatment.