The family of former Delhi University professor G N Saibaba will donate his body to Gandhi Medical College in Telangana on Monday as per his wishes.
Saibaba (57) had spent a decade in prison over alleged Maoists links before being acquitted earlier this year. He died of a heart attack in Hyderabad on Saturday while under treatment for post-operative complications after undergoing surgery for gallbladder stones.
On Monday, his body will be taken from NIMS, Hyderabad, where he died, in a procession to Gunpark for people to pay their respects.
Later, the body will be taken to his brother’s house at Moula Ali in Greater Hyderabad, where family members and close friends will pay their last respects, said G Ramdev, his brother.
A large number of activists, lawyers and friends of Saibaba’s from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, as well as representatives of several NGOs and rights organisations are expected to attend programmes at Gunpark and Moula Ali to pay their tributes.
After 4 pm, the body will be taken and donated for medical research.
Telangana Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Minister Danasari Anasuya, a former Maoist, is likely to attend the programme to pay her respects.
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Several senior Left leaders, like CPI national secretary K Narayana, declined invitations from BJP leaders and Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatreya, to attend Dussehra get-togethers on Sunday. Dattatreya holds such a get-together every year.
In a statement, Narayana said it was Dattatreya’s party’s government that kept Saibaba confined in jail until his health deteriorated, and cited this as the reason for not accepting the invitation.
Several Left leaders from traditional Left strongholds in Nalgonda, Khammam in Telangana and union leaders from various organisations will be in Hyderabad on Monday to pay their respects to Saibaba. Saibaba’s wife Vasantha and daughter Manjeera said that while his body will be kept at Gunpark for a few minutes, people can gather at brother Ramdev’s residence at Moula Ali to pay their respects till 4 pm.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
