Opposition write to President Kovind seeking action against those responsible for Stan Swamy’s death

NEW DELHI: A day after Father Stan Swamy’s death in custody, 10 opposition leaders wrote to President Ram Nath Kovind expressing deep anguish and outrage over his death and demanded Kovind’s immediate intervention as President of India to direct “your government” to act against those responsible for “foisting false cases” on Father Swamy, for his continued detention in jail, and for the inhuman treatment meted out to him while there.
The letter, signed by opposition leaders including Congress president Sonia Gandhi, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, former PM HD Deve Gowda, chief ministers Mamata Banerjee, MK Stalin and Hemant Soren, along with Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja, said the President must fix accountability of those responsible for Father Swamy’s death.

“They must be held accountable. It is now incumbent that all those jailed in the Bhima Koregaon case and other detenues under politically motivated cases, misusing draconian laws like UAPA, Sedition etc, be released forthwith,” the opposition leaders said in their letter to the President.
Swamy, the 84-year-old Jesuit priest and activist who championed the rights and causes of the adivasis in far flung areas of Jharkhand was jailed last October, the opposition leaders said, on “trumped up charges”.

“He was denied treatment for his various ailments including debilitating Parkinson’s. Only after a nationwide campaign was conducted that even a sipper to drink liquids was made available to him in jail,” their letter to the President said.

Signatories including National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah and RJD’s Tejaswi Yadav also said numerous appeals made to shift Father Swamy out of the over-crowded Taloja jail, which saw a huge rise in Covid cases, went unheeded.
His appeals for bail and being sent home were rejected, they added, saying it was only following the intervention of the Bombay High Court that Father Swamy was admitted to a private hospital when his condition deteriorated after he contracted the coronavirus.