India’s political prisoners in bad health, lose family amid COVID

Incarceration distances them from deaths and sufferings of their relatives, often taking away final moments of grief.

“Suppose my daughter has to stay in jail for a really long time and there comes a time when she is not able to see me. I am growing old, maybe I won’t get to see her.” Mahavir Singh Narwal had said this in November last year, his voice cracking. As a ferocious second wave of the coronavirus pandemic erupted in India earlier this year, the 71-year-old retired professor could not meet his only daughter Natasha, one of India’s numerous political prisoners.