The National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested 83-year-old social activist Father Stan Swamy at his residence near Jharkhand’s capital Ranchi on Thursday in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case. Swamy alleged that false evidence had been placed on his computer before he was arrested by the NIA.
Swamy had been questioned as a suspect in the case by investigating agencies, including the Pune police in 2018 and also by the NIA on several occasions since 2018.
He is likely to appear in the NIA special court on Friday, where the agency can request his custody.
Swamy is known for fighting for the rights of tribes in Jharkhand state and was part of the Jharkhand Organization Against Uranium Radiation (JOAR), a campaign directed against Uranium Corporation India Limited in 1996. He has been working for the welfare and the rights of displaced people from Bokaro, Santhal Parganas and Koderma.
A senior NIA official, who confirmed the arrest, said Swamy was a member of the CPI (Maoist) and was actively involved in the activities of the banned group.
“He also received funds through a partner for the promotion of the activities of the CPI (Maoist). He is the coordinator of the Persecuted Prisoners Solidarity Committee (PPSC), a front organization of the PCI (Maoist). Documents related to aiding the activities of the CPI (Maoist) and the propaganda material of the banned team, including its literature, were seized from its possession, ”the NIA official said on condition of anonymity.
Swamy had approached the Bombay High Court in October 2018 to quash the complaint against him in this case. His lawyer Mihir Desai had presented to the court that the PPSC has no political color.
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“The committee of solidarity with persecuted prisoners is made up of the elite of society with the aim of helping prisoners, languishing unnecessarily in various prisons in various states and has no political color,” reads the Desai presentations. in the court order.
The prosecution had also stated at the time that Swamy is only considered a suspect and not a defendant. The court had rejected the motive. Two years later, the NIA, which took over the investigation in January this year, again began investigating its role in the violence case.
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In a statement issued just prior to his arrest, Swamy said: “The nature of the current NIA investigation of me has nothing to do with the Bhima-Koregaon case in which I have been registered as a ‘presumed defendant’ and, in Consequently, I have been raided twice (August 28, 2018 and June 12, 2019). But it had everything to do to establish in some way (i) that I am personally linked to left extremist forces, (ii) that through me, Bagaicha is also related to some Maoists. I denied both accusations in the strongest terms. “Bagaicha is a Jesuit-run social center, where Swamy lives in a room.
Swamy also alleged that NIA fabricated evidence against him. “I was interrogated by the NIA for 15 hours over a period of 5 days (from July 27 to July 30 and August 6). Apart from my biological data and some factual information, I was presented with several excerpts supposedly taken from my computer that imply my connection to the Maoist forces. I told them that these are all fabrications sneakily into my computer and disowned them. ”
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