In May 2007, Illina Sen, 57, was holidaying with her mother in Bengal when she got a call from her husband, Chhattisgarh-based doctor Binayak Sen. “There is a constable at the door,” he told her, “they want me to go to the police thana.”

“He went,” Illina says, before pausing, then adding: “he hasn’t yet returned.” After two long years in jail, Sen is finally set to return home, with the Supreme Court granting him bail on Monday.

Sen was arrested by the Chhattisgarh police for passing on information from a jailed Naxalite to his supporters. He denies these charges, attributing his arrest to his criticism of state atrocities in its war against the Naxals.

Her world plunged into chaos, Illina has been running from pillar to post, meeting lawyers as well as well-wishers who have floated the ‘Free Binayak Sen’ campaign. This in addition to working as a sociology professor in Wardha, Maharashtra. Her efforts seem to have paid off finally.

Archana Gupta-Soni, 36, was at home in the steel town of Bhilai on April 16 when the phone rang. “There’s been an accident,” the voice said, “your husband is hurt”. It was not until later that day, when she saw crowds gathering outside her house, that Archana understood what was being replayed endlessly on television — her husband, U C Gupta, was dead. He had been on election duty in the Naxal-infested Rajnandgaon district in Chhattisgarh, when he was killed in a landmine blast along with four others.

... contd.