Kathmandu. Father Stan Swamy, an 83-year-old Jesuit priest, has been accused and charged for involvement  in the incident of caste-based violence in Bhima Koregaon village in Maharashtra state in 2018, which makes him the oldest person to be accused of terrorism in India.

According to BBC, the government  has accused Father Swamy, who has survived cancer and three surgeries, to be linked to the Maoist rebels in the 2018 case. He has Parkinson’s disease and his hand shakes when he raises a cup of tea.  On Thursday evening he was taken from his hometown  Ranchi in Jharkhand to Mumbai where he was put in remand until 23 October.

Father Swamy had been under the scanner for  the past two years. Detectives had questioned for 15 hours over five days in July and even had “some extracts” allegedly taken from his computer linking him with the Maoists, which he denies. He tried to  assure his interrogators that he had no connection with Maoists and believed in peaceful, non-violent protest, but to no avail.

Since moving to Jharkhand in 1991, Father Swamy fought relentlessly for the tribal people and devoted his life for their betterment, his associates say. Xavier Dias, a friend and activist stated that  people were more important than anything else for Stan.  He would do all in his might and cross all borders to be with the people, Das added

“He might have helped people with association or sympathy with Maoists, which is not uncommon in a place like Jharkhand. That doesn’t make him a Maoist,” Jean Dreze, a Belgian-born Indian development economist opines.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has jailed 16 in connection with the 2018 case, including some of India’s prominent scholars and activists.