Varavara Rao’s condition stable, says JJ

Even as JJ hospital authorities said that 81-year-old poet Varavara Rao’s condition is stable, his family said that while there was absolutely no official information forthcoming from the Taloja prison authorities, they managed to get the jail authorities on phone and were told that it is not the jail’s responsibility to inform the family.

Hospital authorities said that Rao is undergoing blood tests, MRI and CT scan and his condition is stable. He is admitted to the neurology department.

“At around 5 pm, we called the jail and someone on the line said that it is not the prison’s responsibility to inform the family and is that of the NIA whom they have informed,” said Rao’s nephew N Venugopal. But they did not hear from the NIA either, he said.

Rao’s daughter Pavana said there had been no information officially and the family has been relying on information from well-wishers and media reports, which sometimes only tend to confuse them and make them more anxious.

The family is apprehensive that the hospital may hurriedly discharge Rao, like they say the hospital did when he was admitted there in May end. Rao was discharged on June 1 and his bail plea hearing was scheduled the next day. “His sodium levels had not reached the minimum and he was discharged,” Pavana says.

Rao was taken to JJ hospital on Monday and has been there at least since afternoon. On Monday night, the hospital said he was brought for checking his medical fitness and doctors are checking his various health parameters.

The hospital visit and subsequent admission happened the same day that an urgent writ petition in the Bombay High Court filed by their advocate R. Sathyanarayan seeking directions to the prison authorities to submit a detailed report along with medical papers of the treatment and course of action followed by them after Rao was discharged in early June after he fell unconscious in jail and was admitted in JJ hospital in May end.