A group of 500 prominent persons, including film personalities Soumitra Chatterjee and Aparna Sen, have penned an open letter to the Centre demanding the immediate release on bail of activists such as Varavara Rao and Safoora Zargar at a time when “a pandemic is raging across the country”.

Left-leaning poet and writer Rao is among 11 rights activists who have been jailed in connection with the Bhima-Koregaon violence, Maoist links and an alleged plot to kill the Prime Minister.

“In the prisons of Maharashtra where they are being detained, some inmates have died and many others have tested positive for Covid-19,” the letter issued by the Indian Cultural Forum on June 16 said. Maharashtra is the state worst affected by the pandemic with over 1.2 lakh cases and more than 5,700 deaths.

Other than Rao, those in jail in connection with the Bhima-Koregaon case are Sudha Bhardwaj, Shoma Sen, Anand Teltumbde, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalvez, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Sudhir Dhawale and Rona Wilson, the letter pointed out.

It also expressed dismay over the denial of bail to student activist Zargar of Jamia Millia University and human rights activist from Assam, Akhil Gogoi. Zargar, who is pregnant, was arrested under the anti-terror UAPA law in a case related to communal violence in northeast Delhi during the February riots in the aftermath of the Centre introducing a new citizenship regime. Apart from Soumitra and Aparna, the letter has been signed by film personalities Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das, Amol Palekar, Onir and Anurag Kashyap. Twenty prominent people from Bengal are among the signatories.

The open letter said “Gogoi has repeatedly raised his voice against human rights violations by the state”, and Zargar “was arrested for protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act”.

“The focus should not be on the suppression of dissent, but on the containment of the pandemic for all, in prison and out of it,” the letter said.

Veteran actor Dhritiman Chatterjee said: “Several personalities from West Bengal, including me, have signed the letter. We demand that the liberal space is not encroached and throttled in a democracy.”