Dr Sen was found guilty of carrying messages and setting up bank accounts for Maoist rebels The wife of a leading Indian human rights activist who has been sent to prison for helping Maoist rebels has said she may seek "political asylum".
Ilina Sen, wife of Dr Binayak Sen, told reporters that she and her family were "not feeling safe in India" after her husband's incarceration.
Last month Dr Sen was found guilty of carrying messages and setting up bank accounts for the rebels.
Activists say the evidence against Dr Sen was "manufactured".
The human rights group Amnesty International has said his trial violated international standards.
US author Professor Noam Chomsky, Indian historian Prof Romila Thapar and dozens of well-known Indian academics have said in a statement that are "deeply shocked by the judgment of a Chhattisgarh [central Indian state] court holding Dr Sen to be guilty of sedition, and sentencing him to life imprisonment".
His wife said on Monday that the "only recourse left for me is to go to some embassy of a liberal, democratic country and ask for political asylum".
Mrs Sen, who is a social worker and runs a NGO, told the BBC that the police in Chhattisgarh state, where Dr Sen worked with the poor and the tribals, was "hounding" her.
"We are constantly followed by police, receive anonymous mails, threatening calls, and our phones are tapped," she said.
She said she had moved to the western state of Maharastra recently due to such pressures.
"Even my landlord in Maharastra was called up by police and made aware of my antecedents," Mrs Sen said.
Chhattisgarh government officials denied the allegations and said they were a "publicity stunt."
Mrs Sen said her husband's trial was a "sham... the allegations against him are vague and even a child can make out there is not an iota of truth in it".
The court in Chhattisgarh found Dr Sen and three others guilty of treason and sedition and Dr Sen, who was out on bail since May 2009, was arrested.
He was first arrested from Bilaspur town in May 2007 for alleged links with Maoist leader Narayan Sanyal, whom he used to visit in jail.
India's Supreme Court ordered his release on bail two years later.
Dr Sen, a trained paediatrician, says he does not support the Maoists.
He ran a weekly clinic for the tribals and was piloting a community-based health programme.
Dr Sen was also awarded the prestigious Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights for his services to poor and tribal communities and his unwavering commitment to civil liberties and human rights.
His efforts in public health programmes helped to bring down the infant mortality rate in the state and deaths caused by diarrhoea and dehydration, say local doctors.
Dr Sen has been outspoken about the ways in which the government is trying to tackle the Maoists in Chhattisgarh by backing a controversial civil militia of local tribals called Salwa Judum.
He has also expressed his deep concern over rising inequality in India despite the economic boom.
This article is from the BBC News website. � British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-south-asia-12109926
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