Hacker planted evidence on Stan Swamy’s computer, claims forensic report

NT Correspondent

New Delhi: A report by a United States-based digital forensics firm has claimed that a hacker planted evidence on a device owned by tribal rights activist Stan Swamy, who was accused of involvement in the Bhima Koregaon violence case, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

The report could probably jeopardise the National Investigation Agency (NIA)'s charges against Stan Swamy, which centre around alleged electronic correspondence between the priest and supposed Maoist leaders to make the case that he was part of an explosive Naxal conspiracy.

In its findings, Arsenal Consulting, a Boston-based forensic outfit hired by Swamy's lawyers, says close to 44 documents, including the so-called Maoist letters, were planted by an unknown cyber attacker who gained access to Swamy's computer over an extended period of five years, starting from 2014 to the point when he was raided in 2019, according to The Washington Post.

Swamy died in custody at a Mumbai hospital nearly nine months after he was arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The 84-yearold had suffered from multiple ailments, including Parkinson’s disease and had contracted the coronavirus infection at the Taloja prison at Navi Mumbai.

In a video recorded just before his arrest in 2020, Father Swamy had rubbished the purported Maoist letters found on his computer, saying he "denied and disowned every single extract that was put before me" by investigators.

The NIA, however, claimed he was part of a conspiracy along with 15 others to instigate riots in the village of Bhima-Koregaon in Maharashtra in 2018, when scores of Dalits had gathered to commemorate a historic battle in which Dalits defeated an upper caste army