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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Man arrested for for raping mute woman in Jamshedpur
Jamshedpur (PTI): One person was arrested on the charge of raping a 30-year-old woman with speech impairment in Jamshedpur, a police officer said on Tuesday.
The incident occurred in the Azadnagar police station area of the city, and a case in this regard was registered based on the statement of the victim's brother on Monday.
The victim had gone to fetch water from the premises of a company on Monday evening. When she did not return even after a considerable time, family members went out in search of her and caught the accused red-handed, police said.
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The accused was a caretaker of the company.
Deputy Superintendent of Police (Patamda) Bachandeo Kujjur said due to scarcity of water in the area, the victim used to fetch water from the premises of the company.
