Health deteriorated after arrest, says Stan Swamy; seeks bail
Active Times For Printing Download Epaper from files section from bottom of this page
Mumbai: Activist Stan Swamy, an accused in the Elgar Parishad case who has been in Navi
Mumbai’s Taloja jail for eight months told the Bombay high court on Friday that his health had
deteriorated rapidly after his arrest and that he would rather “suffer and possibly die” than get
hospitalized in Mumbai. The 84-year-old told a bench of justices SJ Kathawalla and SP Tavade
that his health was severely affected after his arrest in October 2020, and the previous two
bouts of hospitalization in Mumbai had not helped improve his condition. Instead, he said he
wished to go back to his home town Ranchi on bail. “The main issue is that eight months ago I
could take a bath by myself; I could take a walk; I could do some writing by myself. But all of
these are disappearing...,” the Jesuit priest said. The bench asked if Swamy would prefer to get
“general treatment” at the state-run JJ Hospital, to which the 84-year-old responded that he
didn’t think admission to the medical facility would do him any good. “What Swamy said. “I
would rather suffer medicines will the JJ Hospital give me? I have been there twice. I know the
set-up. I don’t want to go there,” and possibly die,” he said, insisting that he be granted interim
bail. The court, however, said it was hearing arguments on the issue of hospital admission, and
not on bail, in Friday’s hearing. Swamy is among the prominent activists arrested in the case
related to the violence that erupted in Maharashtra’s Bhima Koregaon village in January 2018.
He has been booked under the stringent UAPA.
