St. Xavier’s College Mumbai cancels Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture after ABVP protests
Mumbai: St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai has cancelled its annual Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture, scheduled for Saturday, following protests from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
The ABVP’s Mumbai unit said on Tuesday that its members had met the college principal and submitted a letter demanding the “immediate cancellation” of the event. The organisation claimed that holding a lecture in memory of a person accused in the Elgar Parishad–Bhima Koregaon case and charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) amounted to “glorifying urban Naxalism on campus.”
The group urged Maharashtra authorities to take “strict action” against such programmes, alleging they were being conducted under the “guise of academic freedom.”
Organised by the college’s Department of Inter-Religious Studies, the lecture was to have been delivered virtually by Father Prem Xalxo on the theme “Migration for Livelihood: Hope amidst Miseries.”
Father Stan Swamy, an 84-year-old Jesuit priest and human rights defender, was arrested in 2020 for alleged links to a banned Maoist organisation accused of instigating violence in Maharashtra in 2018. A long-time advocate for tribal rights, Swamy spent nine months in jail without trial under the UAPA before his death in July 2021.
Despite suffering from Parkinson’s disease and other serious ailments, he was denied bail multiple times. In May 2021, he was hospitalised after contracting COVID-19 and died following a cardiac arrest ahead of a scheduled bail hearing.
He was the oldest of a dozen activists, academics, and rights defenders charged in the Elgar Parishad–Bhima Koregaon case.
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Pak court grants bail to PM Shehbaz's daughter and her husband in graft case
Lahore (PTI): A Pakistani court on Tuesday granted bail to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's daughter Rabia Imran and her husband Imran Yousaf in a mega corruption and money laundering case.
Judge Ashfaq Ahmed allowed the bail petitions of the couple and restrained the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) from arresting them till May 7.
"The special court (central) Lahore granted interim pre-arrest bail to PM Shehbaz's daughter, Rabia Imran and her husband Imran Yousaf till May 7 in a mega corruption and money laundering case as the couple personally appeared before the court along with their counsel after arriving from the UK, where they had gone in 2022 to evade arrest," a court official said.
Last week, an accountability court had suspended the perpetual arrest warrants issued against the couple in the multi-billion corruption case, related to the Punjab Saaf Pani Company case.
The accountability court had issued perpetual warrants for their arrest in 2022 during the tenure of the Imran Khan government.
The PM's daughter and her husband had fled to the UK in 2022, and the court subsequently had declared them proclaimed offenders.
Interestingly, the country's anti-graft body -- National Accountability Bureau (NAB) -- that had instituted the multi-billion corruption case against the couple told the accountability court that it has no objection if the court suspends their warrants.
PM Shehbaz was also nominated in this corruption case but has been acquitted because of a lack of evidence.
Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party has consistently alleged that the acquittal of PM Shehbaz and other ruling coalition members in various mega corruption cases is the result of a "compromised judiciary" and a "NAB-PMLN nexus" (referring to a perceived alliance between the NAB and the military-backed government).
His party has claimed these acquittals represent the "demise of justice" and has accused the judiciary of acting as a "silent accomplice" to state-backed political terrorism.
Khan was ousted from power in April 2022 through a no-confidence motion. Subsequently, he was arrested in August 2023 and has been in jail in multiple cases since then.
