Convicted of sedition and Maoist links, senior journalist Prafulla Jha released after seven years in jail

Veteran journalist Prafulla Jha, who became the first journalist in Chhattisgarh to be convicted of sedition, was freed on Saturday after nearly seven years in jail. He was arrested in January 2008 after a bag full of weapons was recovered from his Raipur home in January 2008.

Subsequently, his son Pratiek Jha was also arrested with six others in what the state police claimed as the “biggest case of urban network of Maoists” in Chhattisgarh.

All eight of them were convicted last July. While three were awarded three-year jail term, Jha and the other four were given seven years in jail. With Jha, another convict Meena Chaudhary was also released today.

They all were held guilty of helping the Maoists in running their operations in urban areas of Chhattisgarh.