Hundreds of activists hit Ranchi streets in support of Stan, demand UAPA repeal

Ranchi: Hundreds of civil rights activists from different socio-political groups congregated under the banner of People’s union for Civil liberties (PUCL), Jharkhand unit on Friday to demand justice for human rights activist Stan Swamy, who died in judicial custody in Mumbai on July 5. The activists handed over a memorandum to Governor Ramesh Bais, which was addressed to President of India Ram Nath Kovind, seeking his intervention for an immediate check on ‘dictatorial acts of the government and restoration of democratic rights of the citizens’.
On Friday afternoon, while braving incessant rains, the activists formed a human chain near Albert Ekka square while holding placards to condemn the ‘institutional murder’ of Stan and demanded the revocation of ‘draconian laws like UAPA and sedition’.
Stan was an accused in the Bhima Koregaon case and was charged under UAPA and was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) last year and forwaded to a Mumbai-based jail.
CPIML’s Bhuneshwar Kewat, who took part in the protest at Main Road, said, “Stan did not die due to natural causes. We are calling it an institutional murder because he was framed in the Bhima Koregaon case. False evidence was planted in his computer and he was denied bail despite the fact that NIA failed to produce any evidence during the nine months of his incarceration.”
Kewat demanded a judicial probe into his death and said that those who were hatching a conspiracy to keep Stan behind the bars for raising voice in support of tribals and Dalits in Jharkhand should be taken to task.
Another activist Dayamani Barla accused those in power corridors of being afraid of activists. “Stan had been challenging the formation of the land bank and also raising voice in support of thousands of tribals who were languishing in jails after being branded as Maoists. He had become a trouble-maker for the government-corporate nexus,” she said, adding that his death was a planned murder.
Developmental economist Jean Dreze also joined the protest and said that Stan has become a symbol for those thousands of people who have been punished by use of UAPA. He claimed that the prosecution fails to establish the cases registered under UAPA and yet those arrested for crimes under that act are denied bail.
Jharkhand PUCL’s general secretary Arwind Avinash said that the ultimate sacrifice of Stan will be organising a series of agitations across the country to fight against the prevailing dictatorship. “Governments are not only silencing the voices of dissent by use of law but are also resorting to illegal ways for silencing them. All civil rights defenders will come on one platform to stop the exploitation,” he added.