During his questioning by the National Investigative Agency (NIA) last year, Jesuit priest Stan Swamy, a tribal rights activist and one of 16 arrested in the Elgaar Parishad case, had informed the officials of the “ unethical insertion of documents ” into his computer, a colleague of Swamy’s said Tuesday.

According to Father Solomon, while being questioned by the NIA last year, the 83-year-old priest had spoken of at least three cases where he was shown documents from his laptop that he had rejected and claimed to be inserted. Father Solomon is the director of Bagaicha, an organization founded by Swamy that works with tribes in Jharkhand.

“On three occasions, on July 28, July 29 and August 6, NIA officials showed him excerpts that were claimed to have been found on Father Swamy’s computer. He had told them that these never existed on his computer. That a computer can be hacked is imaginable for people in their 60s. When I tried to explain this to him … and he is 83 years old so at first he was puzzled and gradually began to deal with the terrifying complexities of hacking and implanting documents while being shown these excerpts that were said to be on his device “, Solomon said … He was speaking at a virtual press conference held by the defendants’ relatives, colleagues and lawyers.

Solomon also claimed that sentences were added to letters to project that Swamy had ties to banned rebel groups.

Swamy was arrested by the NIA in October last year, from Bagaicha in Ranchi, and taken to Mumbai the next day. The NIA filed a charge sheet against him the same day and claimed that incriminating documents, including propaganda material and literature, were found in his possession.

At Tuesday’s press conference, defendants’ relatives and colleagues from the Elgaar Parishad case demanded an independent investigation into the alleged evidence placement following a report by US-based digital consultant Arsenal Consulting. Based on the copies of defendant Rona Wilson’s electronic devices, seized by the Pune Police in 2018 sent by his defense team, the consultant had said he was “infected with malware” in 2016, two years before Wilson’s arrest, and “incriminating evidence”. was planted through it by a hacker.

Wilson has filed a petition with the Bombay High Court, seeking the annulment of the FIR and the charge sheet in the case, as well as an independent investigation. The relatives and companions of the defendants reiterated the demand, indicating that they should also be released on bail immediately. None of the 16 detained between 2018 and 2020 has been released on bail from the courts.

Also present at the conference were experts such as Jedidiah Crandall, Associate Professor at the Biodesign Center for Biocomputing, Security and Society, Arizona State University, and Sandeep Shukla, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Kanpur. The two said that a reading of the digital consultant’s report had shown that Wilson’s electronic device was compromised via a remote access Trojan. “It is not unusual to see the use of this type of malware, which is generally done for monetary purposes by accessing a person’s passwords. The part that is exceptional in this case is the time that the person was monitoring the target (Wilson) and the activity on it, done with the intention of implication, ”said Crandall.

Shukla said minimal antivirus software would have detected the presence of malware when the device was forensically scanned.

The Home Office had said that there was nothing to suggest that based on the investigation conducted and reports from Pune forensic experts (the NIA took over the case from the Pune Police in January 2020), no evidence was placed .

The Superior Court has yet to hear Wilson’s statement. Another motive for mirror images of Swamy’s devices is pending in the trial court.

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