Act against those responsible for framing Stan: Opposition to President

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 and demanded his immediate intervention.
Referring to the death of Swamy, held under the UAPA in the Elgar Parishad case, the opposition leaders said that as President of India, Kovind should direct “your government” to act against those responsible for “foisting false cases” on the activist. They said those responsible for his continued detention in jail and for the “inhuman treatment” meted out to him should be held to account.
The letter, signed by opposition leaders, including Congress president Sonia Gandhi, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, former PM H D Deve Gowda, chief ministers Mamata Banerjee, M K Stalin and Hemant Soren, along with Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja, said the President must act in the case of Swamy’s death.
“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.
They said the 84-year-old Jesuit priest and activist who championed the rights and causes of tribals in far-flung areas of Jharkhand was jailed last October on “trumped up charges”. “He was denied treatment for his various ailments, including the debilitating Parkinson’s disease. Only after a nationwide campaign was conducted that even a sipper to drink liquids was made available to him in jail,” it said.
The signatories, who also included 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 had seen a huge rise in Covid cases, went unheeded.