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Stan Swamy dead: NIA didn’t seek custody but kept him behind bars, opposed his plea https://indianexpress.com/article/india/father-stan-swamy-dead-elgar-parishad-case-nia-probe-7390722/ Founder of Bagaicha, a Ranchi-based organisation that works for advisasis and moolvasis, Swamy said he was targetted for protesting against the illegal detention of youngsters accused of being Maoists. October 22: Within a week of his arrest, when Swamy sought interim bail on the ground that he is susceptible to the Covid-19 infection given his age and comorbidities, including a heart condition and Parkinson’s disease, the NIA said the 83-year-old was taking “undue benefit” of the pandemic and that the pleading about his medical condition was “merely a ruse” to obtain interim relief. As ‘evidence’ of his alleged association with the CPI (Maoist), the NIA told the court there were emails exchanged between Swamy and the other co-accused Stan said he has never visited Bhima Koregaon and the documents claimed to have been found on his laptop were in a format which can be “easily manipulated and planted on an insecure digital device”. Even before his arrest, Swamy had questioned the authenticity of the documents when confronted with them, saying that they did not show details of the sender and receiver, and had no date or signature, and thus could be easily planted. The NIA claimed that in 2019, he had attended a meeting in Kolkata organised to protest against the arrest of human rights activists in the Elgar Parishad case.