Jailed activist dies at 84

Father Stan Swamy, an 84-year-old Jesuit priest and Indian tribal-rights activist, died Monday in a Mumbai hospital, a day before a scheduled hearing on his bail plea. Swamy had been jailed for nine months without trial, held under India's Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) over alleged ties to a banned left-wing group that authorities accused of instigating 2018 violence in Maharashtra state — an allegation Swamy denied.

He was arrested by India's National Investigation Agency in October 2020 as one of 16 people accused in the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case, most of them academics and human-rights activists, and had been repeatedly denied bail. At 84, he was the country's oldest inmate charged under the anti-terror law.

A death in custody, one day before a hearing

Swamy suffered from Parkinson's disease, which left him struggling to eat and drink, and had been hospitalized with COVID-19 in late May. He was admitted to a private Mumbai hospital on May 29 after the Bombay High Court ordered his transfer from Taloja prison for medical care, following a petition he had filed himself. According to Deccan Herald's reporting, the cause of death was recorded as pulmonary infection compounded by Parkinson's disease and post-COVID complications; he suffered cardiac arrest the weekend before he died.

The legal fight he did not live to see resolved

Swamy had separately challenged Section 43D(5) of the UAPA before the Bombay High Court, arguing the provision — which bars bail if the accusation against a defendant is found prima facie true — creates what he called an "unsurmountable" hurdle to release. That challenge, and his bail plea, were still pending when he died.

International and domestic reaction

We are deeply saddened and disturbed by the death of 84-year-old Father Stan Swamy.

Liz Throssell, a spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, made that statement following his death, according to Al Jazeera. In India, Congress party leader Jairam Ramesh said the state bore responsibility for Swamy's death, while other activists called for accountability, with some describing it as a custodial death.

What it signals

That an 84-year-old priest with Parkinson's disease and a recent COVID infection died in custody the day before his bail hearing, after nine months without trial, became a flashpoint in a broader debate over India's use of the UAPA against activists and academics — a law Swamy was separately trying to challenge in court when he died. His death, rather than resolving the underlying legal question, left it open, while intensifying international scrutiny of how the law is applied to elderly and ill defendants.

US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by Al Jazeera and Deccan Herald. It restores a story originally published on this site in July 2021; figures are as reported at the time.