People's Democracy

Investigate New Revelations on Purulia Arms Drop

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) issued the following statement on April 29, 2011.

THE Purulia arms drop in December 1995 was one of the most serious instances of an assault on the country’s sovereignty. The investigations and the court trial had proved that the arms were meant for the Ananda Marg which was planning to use it to foment violence to destabilise the Left Front government.

The revelations by Niels Christian Nielsen alias Kim Davy, who is still absconding, and Peter Bleach, who was sentenced in the case, have raised new questions.

In the aftermath of the Purulia arms drop it was known that the British intelligence agency MI5 had informed RAW about the proposed airdrop in late November 1995. The then British home secretary had confirmed this in a press conference in Delhi on January 5, 1996. The RAW had alerted the home ministry and other authorities. Yet, the West Bengal government was sent this information by registered post which reached after the arms drop.

1) It was reported that the radar at the Kalaikunda air base was not operational at the time of the air drop.

2) How was it that on the return trip from Phuket in Thailand the plane could land in Chennai and take off even when there was an alert on the aircraft.

3) For more than a decade Kim Davy has been living in Denmark and the central government has been tardy in getting him extradited.

Kim Davy has given specific details of how he had escaped from the Mumbai airport and reached Nepal. He has named Pappu Yadav, who was then an MP, as the person who assisted him. It should be noted that the same Pappu Yadav is in jail serving a life sentence for the murder of CPI(M) MLA, Ajit Sarkar.

Both Bleach and Kim Davy have made charges of connivance by certain Indian authorities in the airdrop plan and the cover-up later.

All this information necessitates looking at the Purulia airdrop in a fresh light.

The existence of the Left Front government in West Bengal has been anathema for many domestic and international forces. At present too, the spectre of violence is being used to destabilize the Left Front government. Even the union home minister recently talked of the “killing fields” in West Bengal and blamed the CPI(M) for it. On the other hand, the Maoist violence is being aided and supported by the Trinamul Congress which is part of the Congress-led government at the centre.

It is essential therefore to thoroughly investigate the Purulia arms drop affair. For this, the following steps have to be taken:

(i) Pappu Yadav should be interrogated and the trail by which Kim Davy escaped from the country should be uncovered and the persons responsible brought to book.

(ii) There has to be a judicial enquiry by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court into the circumstances of the arms drop in Purulia and to uncover the network responsible.