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New Delhi: When Rebecca speaks of Vishal Singh, she does not begin with the alleged case he has been arrested for. Instead, she talks about his work, his passion for filmmaking, and giving voice and space to those in need.

Singh, a documentary filmmaker and activist, had been working on a film about tribal distress and displacement before his arrest. He had earlier documented the lives of migrant workers and worked on films and projects concerning people at the margins of Indian society. Now, Rebecca says, he is struggling to see, eat and even sleep.

Singh, who hails from Mathura, has been jailed at the district jail in Lucknow since June 29, 2025. He was arrested when he was in Delhi by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with a conspiracy case over his alleged links with the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). The accusation was that he supplied drones to Naxalites, and trained them to operate the equipment and keep watch on security forces’ activities in the forest areas of Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha.

More than a year later, his partner says his health has deteriorated to a point where she is worried if he is receiving the medical care he needs.

“He was complaining to prison authorities for the last couple of months but no one listened. No tests were done. He was repeatedly telling prison doctors about his deteriorating health condition, nobody cared until things got out of hand,” Rebecca, his partner, tells The Wire.

According to her, it was only after she began approaching the media, and people who knew Singh started raising the issue on social media, that prison authorities........

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