Father Stan Swamy, 83-year-old Jesuit priest & tribal rights activist made a plea seeking bail. He was arrested in the Elgar Parishad case. In the plea, he told the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court that working for undertrials who could or couldn’t have been Maoists, does not make him a Maoist. The plea said that the Persecuted Political Prisoners Solidarity Committee was one of the most prominent human rights organisations in Jharkhand providing legal aid. The NIA had alleged that it was a frontal organisation of CPI (Maoist). The court has sought replies on the bail plea and another made by Swamy’s advocate. After the NIA informed the court during the hearing that a sipper and straw were not part of the items seized during Swamy’s arrest, the defence made a fresh application seeking winter clothes and a straw & sipper for the octogenarian who is suffering from Parkinson’s disease.