Eminent lawyers, journalists and human rights defenders on Monday evening paid tributes to Jesuit priest and activist Stan Swamy, who had once told his colleagues that if "working for the tribals, the marginalised was a crime," he was ready to face the consequences. "I am ready to go to prison. My bag is packed," the 84-year-old priest, an undertrial in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, had said at the time of his arrest last year from Ranchi, his colleagues and associates said. Stanislaus Lourdusamy, or ''Stan Swamy'' as he was known, died on Monday afternoon at a private hospital in Mumbai, where he was undergoing treatment for multiple ailments, and had applied for medical bail in the Bombay High Court. His colleagues and associates, along with several eminent lawyers, journalists, former judges, authors and human rights activists from across the world, took part in an online condolence meet organised for Swamy. Lawyer Henri Tiphagne, Executive Director, People's Watch, a human rights organisation, remembered Swamy as a "stoic" man, who had dedicated his life to working for the marginalised and was targeted by the government for the same.

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