IV 

118TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. RES. 1339 

Honoring the life and legacy of Father Stan, a prominent human rights 

activist who died while in custody of the Indian state on July 5, 2021, 

and encouraging India to pursue an independent investigation into his 

arrest, incarceration, and death. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

JULY 5, 2024 

Mr. VARGAS (for himself, Mr. MCGOVERN, and Mr. CARSON) submitted the 

following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs 

RESOLUTION 

Honoring the life and legacy of Father Stan, a prominent 

human rights activist who died while in custody of the 

Indian state on July 5, 2021, and encouraging India 

to pursue an independent investigation into his arrest, 

incarceration, and death. 

Whereas Father Stanislaus Lourduswamy, known as Father 

Stan, was born on April 26, 1937, in a village called 

Viragalur in the Tiruchirappalli District in the southern 

Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and inspired by the work of 

Jesuit priests from an early age, studied theology starting in 1957; 

Whereas Father Stan spent his Jesuit regency in 1965 to 

1967 at St. Xavier’s High School Lupungutu, Chaibasa, 

in West Singhbhum, now in the central Indian state of 


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Jharkhand, and there came to love and appreciate the 

culture and values of India’s Adivasi (Hindi: ‘‘Original 

Inhabitants’’) community, as well as understood the problems they faced and exploitation they endured; 

Whereas, in 1971, Father Stan completed his master’s degree 

in sociology in the Philippines, where he met and was influenced by Brazilian Catholic Archbishop He ́lder 

Caˆmara’s work with the poor, and was subsequently put 

in charge of the Catholic Relief Services charity in the 

Jesuit Jamshedpur Province, now in the Indian state of 

Jharkhand; 

Whereas Father Stan served as the director of the Indian Social Institute, India’s leading Jesuit institution, in the 

southern Indian city of Bengaluru, from 1975 to 1990, 

where he trained young people from marginalized communities across the Indian subcontinent alongside educationist Duarte Baretto; 

Whereas, through ideas of social justice and liberation theology, Father Stan and the Indian Social Institute 

trained a generation of young leaders among communities 

including Dalits, indigenous communities (Adivasis), fishing communities, agrarian communities, and labor movements; 

Whereas, after finishing his work with the Indian Social Institute in 1991, Father Stan moved to Chaibasa, in 

Jharkhand, where he worked for the Jharkhand 

Organisation for Human Rights, and worked tirelessly 

with the Adivasi people to protect their lands and homes 

from unfair expropriation by the state and mining corporations; 


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Whereas, in 2006, with the support of the Jesuit society and 

intellectuals and activists such as Xavier Dias and Ram 

Dayal Munda, Father Stan set up Bagaicha, a research, 

documentation, and Adivasi training center near the city 

of Ranchi; 

Whereas Father Stan played a key role in one of the most 

significant Adivasi movements in contemporary India, the 

Pathalgadi movement, which used Adivasi traditions of 

stone carving (for instance, for gravestones) to spread information among Adivasi communities regarding rights 

guaranteed to them under the Indian Constitution; 

Whereas, during these decades in Jharkhand, Father Stan 

advocated for and raised awareness regarding the implementation of provisions of the Indian Constitution like 

the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) or the 

PESA Act, which instituted self-governance for people 

dwelling in Adivasi lands; 

Whereas Father Stan also worked on ensuring the implementation of the Forest Rights Act of 2006, which recognized 

the rights of forest-dwelling communities to forest resources; 

Whereas Father Stan also worked on ensuring the implementation of the Land Acquisition Act of 2013, which guaranteed the right to fair compensation and transparency 

in acquisition, and required the assent of the community 

via its self-governance group called the gram sabha; 

Whereas, on noticing widespread arrests of Adivasi youth for 

peaceful protests against land acquisition starting in 

2014 to 2015, in 2017 Father Stan formed the Persecuted Prisoners Solidarity Committee to expose the illegal imprisonment of Adivasi activists, and filed a case 


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against the state of Jharkhand on behalf of at least 

3,000 Adivasi youths languishing in jail; 

Whereas, over the course of his long career fighting for the 

underprivileged, Father Stan authored over 70 books and 

booklets regarding the socioeconomic and cultural circumstances of the Adivasis in Jharkhand, their rights to 

development, and the violence perpetrated against them 

by agents of the Indian state; 

Whereas Father Stan published a 2015 Bagaicha report on 

102 Adivasi, Dalit, and ‘‘backward caste’’ youths illegally 

imprisoned titled ‘‘Deprived Rights Over Natural Resources, Impoverished Adivasis Get Prison: A Study of 

Undertrials in Jharkhand’’; 

Whereas, in 2017, the state of Jharkhand charged Father 

Stan with ‘‘sedition’’ for a Facebook post written in support of the Pathalgadi movement; 

Whereas Father Stan was subsequently released following the 

change in government in Jharkhand in 2019; 

Whereas, in August 2018 and June 2019, Pune police conducted raids on Father Stan’s one-room home in 

Bagaicha in a case regarding clashes near Bhima 

Koregaon in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, 

and subjected Father Stan to hours of intense interrogation; 

Whereas, as an octogenarian and a person suffering from 

Parkinson’s disease, and in the midst of a global pandemic, Father Stan declined to travel to Mumbai from 

Ranchi for further interrogation, and on October 9, 

2020, India’s National Investigation Agency placed Father Stan under arrest; 


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Whereas Father Stan was incarcerated in Taloja prison from 

October 9, 2020, until May 28, 2021, which provoked a 

gradual deterioration in his health; 

Whereas, after being ill-treated in prison to the extent of 

being denied a sipper and a straw to sip water from, and 

in spite of repeated attempts to secure bail by Father 

Stan’s defense team, bail was consistently denied to him, 

even after he contracted COVID–19; 

Whereas the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human 

Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor, along with the Special 

Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of 

the highest attainable standard of physical and mental 

health and the Special Rapporteur on minority issues, 

stated in a letter to the Government of India that the 

digital evidence compiled by the forensic reports rendered 

‘‘the ongoing detention of the 15 accused [in the Bhima 

Koregaon case, including Father Stan] as arbitrary and 

unlawful’’; 

Whereas forensic analysts revealed that unidentified hackers 

fabricated evidence on the computers of at least 2 activists arrested in Pune, India, in 2018, both of whom have 

languished in jail and, along with 13 others, face terrorism charges; 

Whereas researchers at security firm SentinelOne and nonprofits Citizen Lab and Amnesty International have since 

linked that evidence fabrication to a broader hacking operation that targeted hundreds of Indian activists; 

Whereas SentinelOne’s researchers revealed ties between the 

hackers and the Indian police agency in the city of Pune 

that arrested multiple activists based on the fabricated 

evidence, including Father Stan; 


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Whereas Arsenal Consulting (‘‘Arsenal’’) in Chelsea, Massachusetts, is a digital forensics consulting company with 

extensive experience with both criminal and civil litigation, having served as expert consultants and witnesses in 

State, Federal, and international courts; 

Whereas Arsenal computer forensics involves identifying, preserving, analyzing, and reporting on electronic evidence 

using methods acceptable in courts of law; 

Whereas an Arsenal forensic report dated December 11, 

2022, shows that Father Stan was arrested, incarcerated, 

and died based on fabricated evidence; 

Whereas this evidence suggests that the attacker (or hackers) 

responsible for compromising Father Stan’s computer 

had extensive resources and time, and that the obvious 

primary goals were surveillance and incriminating document delivery; 

Whereas over 50 files were planted on Father Stan’s hard 

drive between 2017 and 2019; 

Whereas Arsenal analysts found detailed evidence of the 

hackers attempting to erase evidence of their activities on 

the night of June 11, 2019; 

Whereas Father Stan’s computer was suspiciously seized the 

very next day, June 12, by the Pune police; 

Whereas these forensic findings indicate that hackers had advance knowledge of the raid on Father Stan conducted by 

the Pune police; 

Whereas Arsenal has connected the same attacker to a significant malware infrastructure, which we now know was 

deployed over the course of over 6 years to not only attack and compromise Father Stan’s computer, but to atVerDate Sep 11 2014 19:34 Jul 05, 2024 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR1339.IH HR1339

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tack his codefendants in the Bhima Koregaon case and 

defendants in other high-profile Indian cases as well; 

Whereas, based on various metrics, which include the vast 

timespan between the delivery of the first and last incriminating documents on multiple defendants’ computers, this is one of the most serious cases involving evidence tampering that Arsenal has ever encountered; 

Whereas Father Stan, while still in custody of the Indian 

state, passed away at the age of 84 on July 5, 2021, at 

Holy Family Hospital, Mumbai; and 

Whereas July 5, 2023, marks the 2-year anniversary of Father Stan’s passing away: Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 

2 (1) encourages India to pursue an independent 

3 investigation into the arrest, incarceration, and 

4 death of Father Stan, a prominent human rights ac5 tivist who died while in custody on July 5, 2021; 

6 (2) makes it clear to the Indian Government 

7 and all governments around the world that the mis8 treatment and incarceration of individuals advo9 cating for human rights cannot persist; 

10 (3) monitors the status of, and supports, the 

11 Adivasi, Dalit, and minority communities in India, 

12 as well as other indigenous communities around the 

13 world; 

14 (4) expresses concern at the misuse of 

15 antiterror laws to target human rights defenders and 


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1 political opponents, and applauds a recent ruling by 

2 India’s top court to suspend a controversial colonial3 era sedition law and urges India’s Parliament to 

4 make the suspension permanent; and 

5 (5) makes it clear to the Indian Government 

6 and all governments around the world that freedom 

7 of expression is a fundamental human right, as writ8 ten in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of 

9 Human Rights and adopted by the United Nations 

10 General Assembly in 1948, that enshrines the rights 

11 and freedoms of all human beings. 

Æ 


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