A student takes part in a protest in New Delhi on July 6, 2021, after Jesuit priest Father Stan Swamy, who was detained for nine months without trial under India’s sedition law, died on July 5, 2021. (Photo: AFP)
March 2 2023
JHARKHAND, India – More than 3,000 people have taken part in a signature campaign, demanding justice for late Jesuit Father Stan Swamy and others accused in a sedition case filed by India’s pro-Hindu federal government.
The campaign, launched on Feb. 25 under the auspices of Shahid (Martyr) Father Stan Swamy Nyaya Morcha in Ranchi, the capital of eastern state of Jharkhand, where the late priest worked among tribal people, is getting support from people from all walks of life, according to its organizers.
“We want justice for Father Swamy and others charged with a fake sedition case under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, a stringent anti-terror law in the country,” said Father Thomas Kavala, a Jesuit priest who is part of the campaign.
Contrary to the alleged claims by India’s national investigating agency, Arsenal Consulting, a Massachusetts-based digital forensic firm, in a recent report said the digital evidence was planted on Father Swamy’s computer to implicate him in the case.
“Now it is clear that Father Swamy was willfully trapped in the case by the investigating agency and therefore, he and others accused in the false case should get justice,” Father Kavala told UCA News on March 1.
“We want to appeal to the government to drop the false charges leveled against the innocent persons, including Father Swamy, and want action against all those who worked behind this false case,” the priest said.
The 84-year-old Father Swamy died as an undertrial in a private hospital in Mumbai in western India on July 5, 2021, after being denied bail despite suffering from multiple age-related ailments.
He was arrested on Oct. 8, 2020, by India’s anti-terror National Investigation Agency (NIA) and was accused of being a party to a conspiracy allegedly hatched by outlawed Maoist rebels to unleash violence at Bhima-Koregaon in the western state of Maharashtra on Jan. 1, 2018.
Father Swamy was named among 16 accused in the case, though he had never in his life visited the place where the group violence occurred.
The NIA, however, charged him after it claimed to have recovered digital evidence from his computer that linked him to the alleged crime.
The campaign also called for the immediate abolition of the anti-terror law.
Though the campaign is currently going on in Ranchi, the organizers want it to be taken across the state of Jharkhand.
“We have a plan to organize at least 1,000 meetings across the state among the people for whom Father Swamy worked,” noted Father Kavala.
The organizers plan to collect at least 1,00,000 signatures to press their demands.
“The appeal,” he said, “would be handed over to President Droupadi Murmu, India’s first tribal president who hails from Jharkhand state.”
Father Swamy worked among indigenous people and raised his voice against their exploitation, which made him an irritant in the eyes of the then pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state and also of the federal government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Earlier, Church leaders and rights activists had urged the government to drop charges against Father Swamy and others in light of the findings by Arsenal Consulting.
Neither the NIA nor the federal government has officially reacted to their demand.
The Jesuits in India have moved the Bombay High Court, the top court in Maharashtra, to clear the name of Father Swamy in the alleged false case. – UCA News
