NIA did not interrogate Stan Swamy even once after he was arrested, says his lawyer

The lawyer of tribal rights activist Stan Swamy said that the 84-year-old Jesuit priest, who died in custody on Sunday, had not been questioned even once since he was put in jail in Mumbai, The News Minute reported on Wednesday.

“There was interrogation only before his arrest but not a single day after,” Swamy’s lawyer Mihir Desai told The News Minute. “If they had any further questions, they could have gone for custodial interrogation but they clearly did not have anything else to ask him.”

Accused in the case related to the violence in Bhima Koregaon village near Pune in 2017, Swamy was arrested by the National Investigation Agency in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic in October 2020. He was charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Apart from other ailments, Swamy suffered from Parkinson’s disease, a progressive neurological condition. He had also contracted Covid-19 when he was hospitalised.

On May 21, the Jesuit priest urged the Bombay High Court that he should be allowed to go back to Ranchi, his hometown, as his condition had deteriorated to a point that he could not even do basic tasks like eating and bathing by himself. He was put on ventilator support after suffering a cardiac arrest on July 4.

Desai said that the National Investigation Agency kept opposing the 84-year-old activist’s bail…

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