Maharashtra: Sanjay Raut sees Hitler in Modi govt, murder in Stan Swamy death

MUMBAI: A week after the death of tribal rights activist and Jesuit priest Stan Swamy, Shiv Sena politician Sanjay Raut on Sunday alleged that the octogenarian was killed in jail.
Raut said the Centre was afraid of Swamy. He said Swamy’s death in custody could not be justified. He compared the Modi government with Hitler and Mussolini.
Raut, chief spokesperson of the Shiv Sena and executive editor of the party mouthpiece Saamna, targeted the Modi government in his weekly column ‘RokhThok’ but did not clarify in the column who killed Swamy.
“The Elgar Parishad was definitely a poisonous event. No one can support venomous speeches and slogans. But whatever happened after that should be called a conspiracy of curbing freedom of expression,” Raut said.
He asked whether making tribal communities aware of their rights and freedom is an attempt and conspiracy to topple the government.
The 84-year-old Swamy died in a hospital in the city last week. According to the NIA, Swamy was actively involved with the CPI (Maoist). The NIA said propaganda material of the CPI (Maoist) and documents related to communications for furthering the group’s programmes were seized from his possession. Swamy had said that the material had been planted on his computer and he was being falsely accused.
Raut said the Shiv Sena had differences with various streams of communism. “Maoism, Naxalism are terrible, but they have their political parties, organisations in power and in systems everywhere in the world. Although we accept that these people are worse than the Kashmiri separatists, the murder or death of Swamy in prison cannot be justified,” Raut said.
The Elgar case was filed by Pune police in 2018 and handed over by the Centre to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in January 2020 during the MVA government’s tenure. CM Uddhav Thackeray had criticised the decision while the then ACS (home) had said the state has no objection to the probe being transferred to NIA. The Elgar Parishad was organised on December 31, 2017 at Shaniwarwada in Pune.