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(This piece was originally published on 8 July 2021, and is being republished on the second death anniversary of Jesuit priest and Adivasi rights activist Father Stan Swamy.)
Video Producer: Karan Tripathi
Video Editor: Purnendu Pritam
On 5 July, 1:30 pm, Father Stan Swamy succumbed to his prolonged illness at Mumbai's Holy Family Hospital. Later in the evening, Dr D'Souza from the hospital appeared before the Bombay High Court and said:
At the tail end of Swamy's life, responding to a last-ditch plea to get him adequate medical treatment, the Bombay High Court had finally directed that Swamy be shifted to Holy Family Hospital.
Stan Swamy was 83 when he had first moved a petition before the NIA Special Court on November 27, 2020, seeking bail on medical grounds.
The Special Court sent out a message that an accusation under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) trumps serious concerns to one's life itself; even when the accusation is not proven.
On 5 July, Stan Swamy breathed his last at the Holy Family Hospital. However, by virtue of being a "UAPA accused", he had died multiple times during his incarceration, psychologically and emotionally. The system broke his soul, and snatched away his will to live.
On 21 May, the 84-year-old priest, and a lifelong champion for tribal rights, joined the virtual hearing for his bail plea before the Bombay High Court through video conferencing. Surrounded by a couple of prison officers at the Taloja Central Prison, he looked extremely frail, finding it difficult to hear and respond to questions posed to him by the court.
Even in that struggle to hear, think, and speak, Swamy yearned to be released. He pleaded the court to take his life and liberty seriously, to let him “die in the company of his own”.
Those accused of offences under the draconian UAPA undergo irreparable loss over time, that even an acquittal or discharge would fail to mitigate.
Even convicts serving sentences for heinous crimes, are released on furlough and parole to maintain their roots in society. Proving someone's guilt under the criminal justice system doesn't deprive him of his constitutional right to a dignified life.
However, for the UAPA accused, for the likes of Stan Swamy and Natasha Narwal, even an interim bail on medical grounds becomes a contested space for exercising penal power. Process is used to punish, and both the state and the judiciary not only abdicates its duty to safeguard the fundamental right to life, but actively attempts to alienate the UAPA accused from it.
Stan Swamy's death, is a judicial murder. It's a murder in which every agency of the criminal justice system is complicit. How much more do we have to lose, how many more have to die, till our judicial conscience is awakened to recognise that UAPA must go.
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Published: 05 Jul 2021,09:11 PM IST