Pune: Tribal rights activist and an accused in the Elgar Parishad case, Stan Swamy, who was admitted to Holy Family hospital, passed away due to pulmonary infection and Parkinson’s’ disease. Informing the Bombay high court (HC) about Swamy’s demise, hospital medical director Dr. Ian D’Souza said the Jesuit priest had suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday around 4.30 am. He was put on ventilator and efforts to resuscitate the 84-year-old proved futile. He did not regain consciousness and was declared dead at around 1.24 pm on Monday. The court directed the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and jail authorities to hand over Swamy’s body to Fr Frazer Mascarenhas for his last rites as the deceased did not have any relatives. The Elgar Parishad case pertains to alleged inflammatory speeches delivered at the Elgar Parishad conclave, held at Shaniwarwada in Pune on December 31, 2017, which the police claimed triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon- Bhima war memorial located on the city’s outskirts.

The Pune Police claimed the conclave was backed by people having links with Maoists. The NIA later took over the probe into the case in which over a dozen activists and academicians have been named as accused.

Swamy was arrested by the NIA in October 2020 based on his alleged Maoist connections and was kept at Taloja jail since his arrest. However, after his condition deteriorated, an application for bail on medical grounds was moved in the high court. Through an order on May 28, the HC directed the jail authorities to shift Swamy to a hospital of his choice. Swamy tested positive for Covid and was kept in the ICU of Holy Family hospital. The court extended his stay at the hospital after it was told that though the priest had recovered from Covid, he had some heart complications and his condition had deteriorated.

Chief public prosecutor for the state government, Deepak Thakare, informed the court that as Swamy passed away after a cardiac arrest [and not Covid], an inquest panchnama had to be filed and a post mortem was required. The court directed the state to conduct the same during the day and hand over the body.

In Ranchi, those associated with Swamy and his work, were inconsolable. “For the past four years, we were living under the same roof at Bagaicha. I know he was strong from within and would have lived for another 15 years had he not been arrested in this manipulated case by the NIA,” PM Tony, a close friend of Swamy’s, said. Born in Tamil Nadu, Swamy has been working for tribals’ rights in Jharkhand for the past several decades. Bagaicha, a centre he set up on the outskirts of Jharkhand’s capital Ranchi, was his residence since 2006.