Mili Panda, wife of Odisha’s top Maoist leader Sabyasachi Panda who is currently behind the bars, has donned the hat of a lawyer to fight her husband’s legal battles and set him free.
She signed the Vakalatnama as one of the lawyers for her husband when her husband was produced in a lower court in the southern Odisha town of Berhampur on Wednesday to face trial in one of many criminal cases registered against him by the state police.
Sabyasachi, the most wanted Maoist in Odisha, was arrested by a special squad of the state police last year from Berhampur, where he was hiding in a rented accommodation in a fake name. A number of high profile cases are pending against the top Maoist in different courts in the state.
They include the 2012 kidnap of two Italians in Kandhamal district and the 2008 killing of Hindu religious leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati in the same district which had led to a month-long communal riot in the district.
“I am extremely happy that I am fighting my first court battle for my husband. I acquired the license recently after completing my law course. I have full faith in our judicial system. I am sure my husband will be acquitted in all the cases filed against him. The government has registered false cases against him”, she said.
Treading path of law
Mili said, she had got herself admitted into a law college in Berhampur after her release from the jail. She was arrested by the state police from a house in the outskirts of Bhubaneswar in 2010 on charges of helping and assisting the Maoists. She was released from the prison in 2012 after her acquittal in different cases by the high court as well as a lower court in southern Odisha Rayagara district.
She, however, clarified that the legal team which was fighting Sabyasachi’s cases earlier will continue to do so. “I willbe one of their associates”, she said.