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Journalism of Courage
Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren is facing the same kind of “injustice” that was meted out to Jesuit priest Stan Swamy, a post on his social media account said.
The post on the jailed Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader’s account, now being handled by his wife and MLA-elect Kalpana Soren, said: “Aaj zaroorat hai har Jharkhandi ko Hemant Soren ke paksha mein mazbooti ke saath khada hone ki varna ye (the BJP) Jharkhand ko Manipur banane se baaz nahi aayenge (Today, there is a need for every Jharkhandi to stand strongly in favour of Hemant Soren, otherwise they (the BJP) will not be prevented from turning Jharkhand into Manipur).”
Stan Swamy, also a tribal activist, died in judicial custody in 2021. He was arrested under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) in connection with the 2018 Bhima-Koregaon violence case.
He was 84 when he died.
Hemant Soren was arrested on January 31 this year by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in an alleged land grab case.
In a letter he wrote to President Droupadi Murmu last July, Soren had condemned the ethnic violence in Manipur and said that “tribal brothers and sisters cannot and must not” be treated in an “appallingly barbaric way”. His remarks came at a time when video clips on social media showed two Manipuri women being stripped naked and paraded in Manipur.
The social media post makes a mention of this too, claiming that just as “Father Stan, who raised his voice for the weakest class, was silenced due to institutional neglect and injustice, today similar oppression is being meted out to Hemant Soren”.
Despite Swamy’s advanced age and Parkinson’s disease, he was denied the required medical treatment, the post alleged.
“Due to deteriorating health from prison conditions, Father Stan died in custody…His death is an example of the BJP’s policy of suppressing the opposition and tribals and criminalising human rights work under the pretext of terrorism,” it further said, adding that the recently concluded general election, the process to “avenge” Stan Swami’s death — which it called a “black spot” on India’s democracy — had begun.
Of Jharkhand’s 14 Lok Sabha seats, the INDIA bloc won all five tribal seats while the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance won in the remaining. This outcome was despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s significant tribal outreach, even launching his government’s flagship ‘Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra’ from Ulihatu village in Jharkhand — the birthplace of tribal icon Birsa Munda’s — last November on ‘Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas’, his birth anniversary.
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