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A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Mumbai on Friday, 9 October, remanded 83-year-old right activist Stan Swamy to judicial custody till 23 October, PTI reported, a day after the NIA arrested him in connection with the Elgar Parishad case.
According to The Indian Express, Swamy, a Jesuit priest, was questioned in July and August and summoned to NIA’s Mumbai office earlier this week.
Further, Swamy, in a statement released on 6 October, informed the NIA that, owing to his age and the COVID-19 pandemic, he was not in a position to undertake the journey. He also reportedly informed the NIA about a Jharkhand government directive that asks senior citizens to not appear in public.
In the statement released before his arrest, Swamy had said:
Further, Swamy had said that he could be questioned through a video link.
Swamy’s is the 16th arrest in the case.
According to The Indian Express, while the NIA has alleged that Swamy had Maoist links, Swamy has said that he is being falsely implicated.
In a video, that has since been doing the rounds, Swamy has said that while all this is in connection to the “Bhima Koregaon” case, he has never even gone to Bhima Koregaon.
He said that he believes the State is trying to put him out of the way, because he has been working for the Adivasis and that he had questioned the governments over land rights, representation of community members, and forest rights, reported The Indian Express.
Many have taken to Twitter to condemn the 83 year old’s arrest.
(With inputs from The Indian Express.)
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