Stan Swamy, 83, is the senior in custody in the Koregaon-Bhima case.
New Delhi:
An 83-year-old Jesuit priest was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) as part of the investigation into the 2018 violence in the village of Koregaon-Bhima, Maharashtra.
Father Stan Swamy, an activist working with tribes, was taken to his home in Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand, by a team of NIA officials from Delhi. Officials reportedly spent about 20 minutes at his home before taking him away.
The arrest sparked outrage. Author and historian Ramachandra Guha said Stan Swamy had spent “his life fighting for the rights of adivasis”.
“This is why the Modi regime seeks to suppress and silence them; because for this regime, the profits of mining companies take precedence over the lives and livelihoods of the adivasis,” Guha tweeted.
Several prominent activists, academics and lawyers have been jailed for more than two years pending trial.
Stan Swamy, who has several health problems, is the elderly person to be detained in the Koregaon-Bhima case. He has been questioned several times in the past about the case. Originally from Kerala, Stan Swamy has worked for the tribals of Jharkhand for more than five decades.
The case concerns an event on December 31, 2017 in Pune, which was followed by violence and arson in Maharashtra that resulted in one death.
Investigators alleged that militants at the Elgar Parishad meeting made inflammatory speeches and provocative statements, which they said sparked violence the next day.
Last month, the Supreme Court refused to receive a request for interim release on medical grounds from lawyer-activist Sudha Bharadwaj, who is among the defendants in the case. Ms Bharadwaj, 58, has been jailed in Mumbai for more than two years and suffers from diabetes and co-morbidities and wanted bail so she could pass a medical exam, her lawyer said.
The investigation also claimed to have uncovered a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
During the investigation, the NIA said, it was revealed that senior leaders of the CPI (Maoist), an organization banned under the Illegal Activities (Prevention) Act, were in contact with the organizers of the Elgar Parishad event as well as the defendants arrested in the case to spread Maoist and Naxal ideology and encourage illegal activities.
