PremiumActivist Stan Swamy, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, has passed away, his counsel informed the Bombay High Court on Monday.
The 84-year-old Jesuit priest died at 1.30 pm today, Dr Ian D'Souza, director of the Holy Family Hospital in suburban Bandra, told the HC's division bench of Justices S S Shinde and N J Jamadar. The activist was on ventilator support since Sunday.
The tribal rights activist was admitted to the private hospital on 29 May from the Taloja prison following the high court's order on a petition filed by him, seeking medical attention as he was then suffering from coronavirus and Parkinson's disease.
D'Souza told the HC that Swamy suffered a cardiac arrest early Sunday morning following which he was put on ventilator support.
"He (Swamy) did not recover and passed away this afternoon," the official informed the HC. The cause of the death is pulmonary infection, Parkinson's disease and post coronavirus complications, he said.
Swamy's counsel Mihir Desai said there was negligence on part of the Taloja prison authorities, who failed to provide immediate medical attention to the Jesuit priest.
Who was Stan Swamy?
The Elgar-Parishad case is related to alleged inflammatory speeches made at a conclave held in Pune around four years back on 31 December, which, as per the police, triggered violence the following day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial located on the outskirts of the western Maharashtra city.
The police had claimed the conclave was organised by people with alleged Maoist links.
In the Elgar-Parishad case, Stan Swamy and his co-accused have been charged by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) as being members of frontal organisations working on behalf of the banned CPI (Maoists).
Swamy was arrested by the NIA under an anti-terror law in the Elgar Parishad case in October last year and had been in jail since then.
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