Arrested activist Stan Swamy, 83, files fresh plea requesting straw again
Eighty-three-year-old Swamy, a Jesuit priest, was arrested on October 8 from his home in Ranchi for his alleged role in inciting mob violence in Bhima Koregaon near Pune in Maharashtra on January 1, 2018.
The lawyer for father Stan Swamy on Thursday filed a fresh application seeking direction to the prison authorities to allow winter wear clothes and a straw and sipper for him in prison.
Eighty-three-year-old Swamy, a Jesuit priest, was arrested on October 8 from his home in Ranchi for his alleged role in inciting mob violence in Bhima Koregaon near Pune in Maharashtra on January 1, 2018.
He was remanded in judicial custody and has been lodged in Taloja jail since then.
In early November, Swamy’s lawyer Sharif Shaikh had filed an application for giving direction to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to supply a straw and a sipper which were taken from him at the time of his arrest.
The NIA special public prosecutor Prakash Shetty on Thursday told the court that they don’t have any of Swamy’s things with them.
Following this, the defense lawyers moved an application seeking direction to the prison authorities to provide Swamy with the same at a cost. The defense has pleaded that he has been suffering from Parkinson’s disease and needs a straw as well as slippers for daily use.
On the receipt of the fresh application, the court has now asked the prison authority to file a report by December.
Swamy is known for fighting for tribals rights in the state of Jharkhand and was part of the Jharkhand Organisation against Uranium Radiation (JOAR), a campaign run against Uranium Corporation India Limited in 1996. He has been working for welfare and rights of displaced people of Bokaro, Santhal Parganas and Koderma.
In a statement released just before he was arrested, Swamy said, “The nature of the present NIA investigation of me has nothing to do about Bhima-Koregaon case in which I have been booked as a ‘suspected-accused ’ and consequently raided twice (28 August 2018 and 12 June 2019). But it had everything to do to somehow establish (i) that I am personally linked to extremist leftist forces, (ii) that through me, Bagaicha is also related to some Maoists. I denied both these allegations in the strongest terms.”
Bagaicha is a Jesuit-run social centre, where Swamy lived in a room.
