In February 2020, granting bail to Bhima Koregaon accused Varavara Rao, on medical grounds, the Bombay High Court had noted that “sending him back to prison is fraught with risk.”
Rao, whose health had deteriorated drastically during his period of incarceration, had submitted to a court that there were only three Ayurvedic practitioners and no staff nurses, pharmacists or medical specialists to attend to the prisoners at the prison hospital in Taloja.
Rao's co-accused, Jessuit priest Stan Swamy was eighty-four when he passed away as an incarcerated under-trial on 5 July 2021, a day before his bail hearing.
His friend Fr Joseph Xavier had shared in May that Swamy had told him on a phone call that he had cough, fever, a running stomach and was highly fragile, and yet “only an Ayurvedic doctor is treating me, and some antibiotics are given.”
When Pandu Narote breathed his last at 5:30 pm on 25 August, once again questions arose regarding the health facilities in Maharashtra prisons, and the treatment of ailing inmates.