Octogenarian Jesuit activist arrested for alleged Maoist links

Ranchi: The National Investigation Agency on October 8 took into custody Jesuit social activist Father Stan Lourduswamy for his alleged links with Maoists and banned organizations.

The federal agency took the 83-year-old Catholic priest from the Bagaicha campus, his residence near Ranchi, capital of the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand.

A Jesuit colleague in the campus says the agency presented no warrant to arrest the priest. “NIA people were rough and arrogant. They said he was accused and a senior officer wants to meet him at the NIA office in Ranchi,” he said in a WhatsApp message.

NIA is empowered to deal with terror related crimes across India and requires no permission from a state. It was set up after the November 26, 2008, terror attacks in Mumbai. It now acts as the federal counter terrorism law enforcement agency.

The arrest of the Jesuit activist, who is popularly known as Father Stan Swamy, is in connection with the ongoing investigation into the 2018 violence at Bhima Koregaon, a tiny village near the western Indian city of Pune.

The Bhima Koregaon case dates back to January 1, 2018, the day of the bicentenary celebrations of the Bhima Koregaon battle. The celebration was marred by violence leading to death of one person and injuries to several others. Dalits and higher-caste Maratha people clashed in several parts of Maharashtra.

Police investigation into the incident led to the arrest of several activists for their alleged “Maoist links.” The police alleged that they funded the Elgar Parishad meeting on December 31, 2017, where inflammatory speeches were made, leading to the violence.

Those arrested on August 28, 2019, included writer and poet Varavara Rao, lawyer and activist Sudha Bhardwaj, academic and activist Vernon Gonsalves, and human rights activists Arun Ferreira and Gautam Navlakha.

Father Swamy says the current NIA investigation of him “has nothing to do about Bhima-Koregaon case” where he has been booked as a “suspected-accused.” The agency raided his residence on August 28, 2018, and June 12, 2019, and taken away his belongings, including his computer.

In a video message released two days before his arrest, Father Swamy said the NIA had interrogated him for 15 hours on July 27, 28, 29, 30 and August 6.

“Apart from my bio-data and some factual information, several extracts allegedly taken from my computer implicating my connection to Maoist forces were placed before me. I told them all these are fabrications stealthily put into my computer and I disowned them,” the priest explained.

The priest said the agency wants to prove that he is personally linked to extremist leftist forces such as Maoists and that the Bagaicha campus has links to some Maoists.

“I denied both these allegations in strongest terms,” said the priest, who has worked several decades among tribal people of Jharkhand educating them about their constitutional rights,

He said after six weeks of silence he was summoned to appear in the NIA office in Mumbai, western India.

The priest then informed the agency that he failed to understand the need to interrogate him further as he had already undergone 15 hours of questioning. He also explained that he could not travel to Mumbai because of his advanced age and the coronavirus pandemic ravaging India.

The priest said he had also explained to the agency that the Jharkhand state government has banned people above 65 to appear in public during the lockdown. He then suggested that if the investigating agency insists interrogating him, it could do so through video-conference.

Father Swamy’s message expresses the hope that “human sense will prevail” and save him from traveling to Mumbai. “If not, I/we must be ready to face the consequences,” he says thanking all who have stood in solidarity with him all these years.