Pune cops search Stan Swami’s house in Ranchi, seize gadgets

Pune cops search Stan Swami’s house in Ranchi, seize gadgets

Pune police conducted a search at social activist Father Stan Swami's residence at Ranchi in Jharkhand on Wednesday and claimed to have seized some “electronic devices and other material”.

AgenciesUpdated: Thursday, June 13, 2019, 11:11 AM IST
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Pune: Pune police conducted a search at social activist Father Stan Swami's residence at Ranchi in Jharkhand on Wednesday and claimed to have seized some “electronic devices and other material”. According to the police, the raid was conducted as part of the ongoing probe in the Elgar Parishad case in which nine activists were earlier arrested for their alleged links with Maoists. “Our team conducted a search at Swami's residence in Ranchi as part of the ongoing probe into the Elgar Parishad case. So far, we have seized some electronic devices and other material from his residence,” a senior police official said. Swami has not been detained so far, he added.

During nationwide searches in August last year, the Pune police raided Swami's house also and recovered some material then. The case pertains to the Elgar Parishad conclave in Maharashtra's Pune district on December 31, 2017, which, the police allege, was funded by Maoists. The speeches made by some activists at the conclave “aggravated” the violence near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial in Pune the next day, according to the police charge sheet. The Pune police earlier filed a charge-sheet against the nine activists — Sudhir Dhavale, Shoma Sen, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Rona Wilson, Vara Vara Rao, Arun Ferriera, Sudha Bharadwaj and Vernon Gonzalves.

The charge sheet also named absconding Maoist leaders Dipak alias Milind Teltumbade, Kishan Da alias Prashant Bose, Prakash alias Rituparn Goswami, and CPI (Maoist) general secretary Ganapathy alias Chandrashekhar. The accused were charged with “waging war against the nation” and spreading the ideology of their banned organisation and creating caste conflicts, disaffection, and hatred in the society. The stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) was also slapped on all the accused, the police said.

PUCL’s condemns raid, demands end to abuse People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) strongly condemned the early morning raid by Maharashtra–Pune police at the residence of 83-year-old Father Stan Swamy at Bagaicha Campus, Namkum, Ranchi, Jharkhand.

The Maharashtra police allegedly conducted the raid and search without obtaining judicial search warrant and seized his computer’s hard disk, internet modem and other storage devices and forced him to give his gmail and Facebook passwords. The objective is thus very clear to intimidate, scare and frighten all others – rights activists, democratically-minded groups and concerned citizens – from extending any type of support to Stan Swamy and others. These activists have for some years now been opposing state terrorism let loose in Jharkhand by a corrupt mafia of corrupt police and government officials, greedy politicians and vested Corporate interests who have been attempting to grab valuable forest lands belonging to the Adivasis so as to plunder and appropriate very valuable forest and common resources such as minerals, forest wealth, land, water and other common resources.

The continued harassment, intimidation and terrorization of Father Stan Swamy is part of the same tactics used by the Maharashtra - Pune police, with the support of the Central government, to illegally arrest other rights activists like Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Fereira, Varavara Rao and detain Gautam Navalakha and Anand Teltumbde in the infamous Bhima Koregaon case. The aim is clearly to strike terror in the hearts of any citizen from criticizing the anti-people, undemocratic, brazenly illegal actions of the BJP led government in Maharashtra and the Centre and in Jharkhand too by dubbing such activists as “urban naxals” thereby creating fear in the minds of ordinary people from raising their voices against open, brazen and defiant abuse of law by the police. PUCL demands an immediate end to the abuse of law by the Maharashtra police which is launching a witch hunt to ensnare and entrap many more activists in criminal prosecutions. PUCL also demands an immediate release of all the 9 activists arrested so far in the Bhima Koregaon case and dropping of plans to arrest some others.

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