SHILLONG: The Shillong All Faiths Forum (SAFF) in Meghalaya on Tuesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention for the release of a Catholic Jesuit priest and a tribal rights activist, Fr. Stan Swamy, who was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
In a letter to Modi, the SAFF - an inter-faith body comprising of Christians, Hindus Muslims religious group, said that the arrest of Fr. Stan has filled SAFF with "dismayed shock" and "surprise".
While seeking the Prime Minister to release Fr. Stan on humanitarian grounds, the SAFF said, "Fr. Stan is an octogenarian priest and social worker of a Christian order, and has consistently served the tribals and downtrodden all his life." "Also this year has seen the effect of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in our country as in different parts of the world, and for this reason, an elderly person as Swamy whose age exposes him to the dreaded virus should not have been arrested," the letter read.
In line with the call for respect of the elderly all the world over, the SAFF's letter appealed to the Prime Minister to consider their request to intervene for Fr. Stan Swamy to be released on humanitarian and health grounds while the due process is on." Fr. Stan Swamy was arrested by the National Investigation Agency in connection with the controversial Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case on October 8.