Maharashtra: Elgaar case accused observe day-long hunger strike on Stan Swamy’s first death anniversary

Read Time:2 Minute, 9 Second

To mark the first death anniversary of Jharkhand-based tribal rights activist Father Stan Swamy in judicial custody, eleven other accused in the Elgaar Parishad case observed a one-day hunger strike Tuesday.
The accused lodged in Taloja Central Jail in a letter written through activist Sudhir Dhawale to the superintendent said that the hunger strike was to protest Swamy’s ‘institutional murder’ resulting from ‘lack of proper medical treatment’.
Dhawale in his letter said Swamy’s health deteriorated owing to lack of basic facilities and medical care at the jail. He further said that after Swamy’s death, the condition in the jail has only worsened.
Dhawale has alleged that the prison authorities provide only one kind of medicine no matter what the medical need, and the jail does not have provisions for required medical equipment and staff including technicians, nurses and trained doctors.
The co-accused who joined him in the strike were Hany Babu, Surendra Gadling, Vernon Gonsalves, Anand Teltumbde, Gautam Navlakha, Mahesh Raut, Arun Ferreira, Rona Wilson, Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gairchor.
“When Father Stan Swamy sought bail, the NIA said that he was taking ‘undue benefit’ of the Covid-19 pandemic. Even after he contracted Covid-19, he was sent back to jail after being admitted for basic treatment to a government hospital. It was only after the Bombay High Court intervened that he was sent to a private hospital but it was too late by then. Jail administration and the government are responsible for his death,” the letter stated. It said that Swamy had to make applications before the court for basic facilities including a sipper and a walking stick.
Swamy was arrested by the NIA in October 2020 and brought to Mumbai. The NIA had booked him claiming that he had links with the banned organisation, CPI (Maoist), a charge denied by him. His bail plea was rejected in March 2021 following which he approached the Bombay High Court.
In his last appearance before the court via video conference on May 21, 2021, Swamy had told the bench that his health had seen a steady regression and he wanted to be released and go back to Ranchi. He also told the court that he would ‘possibly die’ if things were to go on as they were. The 84-year-old suffered from Parkinson’s disease and his other medical ailments, too, aggravated in jail. The court ordered for him to be shifted to a private hospital, where he passed away on July 5, last year.
Lottery Box-India’s most professional lottery interactive community.dear lottery online