New Delhi, December 15: The Washington Post has said that the evidence against a Jharkhand-based Jesuit priest and activist Stan Swamy, who died in police custody, was planted by the Indian police. A new digital forensics report has found that multiple incriminating documents were planted on the laptop of activist Stan Swamy, who was arrested for fake militialinks in 2020 by Indian agencies and who died in custody a year later 2021.
About 17 months after his death, Arsenal Consulting report shows that the hacker used a malware called NetWire to gain access to Father Swamy’s computer on October 19, 2014, for both highly invasive surveillance and “document delivery”.
The new report said that “Swamy was the target of an extensive malware campaign for nearly five years, the longest known for any defendant, right up until his device was seized by police in June 2019,” the Washington Post reported.
“During that period, the hacker gained full access and had complete control over his computer, dropping dozens of files into a hidden folder without his knowledge,” the Washington Post said, citing the Arsenal report.
According to the report, these documents, including the so-called ‘letters to Maoists’, are cited by the police as evidence against Swamy and others.
Arsenal’s report said Swamy’s laptop was infected beginning in October 2014 with NetWire, a malware focused on password stealing and keylogging, and also includes remote control capabilities.
The hacker copied more than 24,000 files and folders from Swamy’s computer onto his own server, the report added.
Swamy, a Jharkhand-based Jesuit priest who worked among Dalits was arrested by Indian police in the Bhima Koregaon case that sparked wide condemnation.
The criticism escalated when he died within a year of his incarceration what claimed due to Covid-related complications. The UN and the EU both reacted strongly to the news of Father Stan Swamy’s death.