My dear friends, please, I hope to demand your absolute attention to this matter:
In 2018, my junior from St. John’s Medical College, Bengaluru, Dr. Randall Sequeira (middle in the pic), trekked up a steep, bauxite-rich plateau in Odisha to hold a monsoon health camp in the indigenous Kutiya Kondh village of Kutrumali.
In a piece he wrote then titled "Kutrumali’s Demons," Randall described sleeping under a dripping school roof in freezing fog, borrowing utensils from a local health worker to cook khichdi, and waking up at 6 AM to a line of tribal mothers. He wrote with heartbreak about treating malnourished toddlers with protruding bellies and visible ribs, listening to stories of stillbirths and chronic fevers, while noticing the shiny new solar lights installed by a mining conglomerate eyeing the aluminium ore beneath the villagers' feet.
Comparing his small medical team to hobbits sheltering in the night, Randall worried about the outside forces coming for that fragile village.
Randall stayed with the tribal/ adivasi community to serve them. After St. John’s and an MD in Internal Medicine from SMS Jaipur, he gave up every comfort of urban medicine to live in Kalahandi, recognizing that clinical prescriptions are meaningless when indigenous communities are stripped of their forests, water, and dignity.
On the night of October 16, Odisha police picked up Dr. Randall Sequeira and Dalit activist Laxman Naik at 11 PM from his home in Bhawanipatna. A gentle physician who has spent years trekking up hills to save tribal children is now locked in Rayagada sub-jail under frivolous but draconian charges (attempt to murder, dacoity), simply for standing with Adivasis peaceful protesting the mining of their sacred hills in Sijimali and Kutrumali.
https://t.co/PsxZZCngyV
Odisha Govt. said it will cut down forests to connect tribal villages. But it was a way to bypass green laws and fast track London based Vedanta’s, and Adani's mining plans. Local organisations estimate that around 45 villages depend on these hills and would be affected.
https://t.co/0pATUIYADm
The state has answered with repression rather than dialogue. In the last three years, at least 43 police cases have been filed and over a hundred Adivasis and Dalits, both women and men, have been incarcerated in Odisha jails. For example, from In March and april 2026, 8, 2026, to April 8, 2026, within one month, 24 people were sent to jail, 217 were made accused, and the number of “others” total 1,140. An activist who was not named in the original FIRs, but has since been implicated in about 12 cases, so that bail in one case is followed by arrest in another. This pattern of capture and releases have been used to crush rational dissent.
Dr. Randall understood that being a good doctor means understanding that prescriptions cannot compensate for the denial of land rights, that surgery cannot undo displacement and that no medical can substitute for the basic infrastructure a government has failed to provide.
https://t.co/fOC9AU3jaR
To my fellow medical fraternity, and every citizen with a conscience: a kind physician who embodies the highest ethics of our profession is being criminalized to clear the way for bauxite mining. Please do not let his voice be buried in a sub-jail.
Amplify this, demand due process, and demand the immediate release. Please sign in this form to show solidarity: https://t.co/cgLIoEXExG
If anyone can help out in this situation please reach out to Medico Friend Circle - https://t.co/OT2D2E3DuW
@theliverdoc Heartiest congratulations Doc
You are a beacon of hope and scientific bent.
speaking truth to the unscientific and primitively dogmatic brains.
More and more power and accolades to you.🙌🙌🙌
@MAS Hi@MAS. Sorry does not make a dead man alive. The experience with MAS has been etched in my memory for life. Hopefully I don’t have to travel again with @MAS .
@MAS hey Malaysia airlines. Do you really care to address your customers concerns..? I with my family was travelling MH173 on 13th Oct.
Issues not addressed in formal feedback.
@MAS I have a little daughter. Request you to kindly put me in the direct flight to ADL from KL. I have already missed my work days due to this delay being so much answerable in my company.
@MAS Hi
Thank you for responding.
I don’t have the PNR number rather I have been given boarding pass from KL to MELB instead of Adelaide and further from MELB to ADL with self transferring baggage.
Jantar Mantar or any other random locations are not the sites of protest. The real sites of protest are minds without fear and heads held high.
And these can’t be controlled by a court order.
This is so beautifully written. Rahul Gandhi has borne ridicule, jibes and plain hatred for years and still stood strong. He has 100 percent earned his right to be a leader through trial by fire.
@karunanundy@sardesairajdeep Because he is Rajdeep@ the manager in crisis. Pulls out a different type of card at different times. Has a few jokers left after exhausting his hand. Diversion bro.
Sorry, but the LoP you are alluding to, has a name. And this Rahul Gandhi, who you refuse to name out of sheer malice, gave you a platform when your counterparts shied away from acknowledging your contribution to the Jantar Mantar protest.
Your past few tweets are embarrassing. Harbouring so much paltriness and insecurity so early on in your career will take you nowhere.
This fight is much, much bigger than your fragile egos. Kindly refrain from tweeting if it weighs so heavily on you to credit Rahul Gandhi. He doesn’t need your validation!
Huge love and support to the sibling duo ❤️ Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.
May everyone have a brother and sister like they are for each other ❤️❤️🫂🫂
@RahulGandhi & @priyankagandhi love your love for each other❤️❤️