Purulia Arms Drop – More Questions than Answers "Updated"

The Purulia arms drop is again in the news as the CBI submitted an expired warrant to the Copenhagen Court for the extradition of Niels Christian Nielson aka Kim Davy, by all accounts the mastermind of the drop. It again raises the question of how serious is the Government of India on this case, particularly as Davy, the key accused and Peter Bleach, convicted in this case, claim that the Government was fully aware of the air-dropping of arms and still let it go through as it was meant to destabilise the Left Front government in West Bengal. 

The problem with the Government's account of the issue is why, in spite of full knowledge of the operation, was the arms drop allowed to happen? MI5, the British intelligence agency, had received full details of the aircraft from Peter Bleach – the flight path and the exact co-ordinates of the drop zone – and had informed the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India's external intelligence agency. Not only was the aircraft not interdicted, the West Bengal Government was informed through a routine registered letter of the impending arms drop in Purulia, which reached the Writers Building five days after the drop. 

We are carrying in Newsclick, the full Skype interview of Peter Bleach by Seema Mustafa.

If what he says is correct, the record of the Indian intelligence agencies is damning. Bleach had kept MI5 fully in the loop, who in turn had informed the Indian intelligence agencies. The Government, then and now, has yet to explain why the arms drop went through in spite of this information being available to the intelligence agencies. 

B Raman, former head of the counter-terrorism division of RAW, has called this- 

The litany of shame continues with the expired warrant. Meanwhile, the Government has made no attempt to follow-up on Davy's revelation on Times Now that Pappu Yadav, the former RJD Member of Parliament serving life imprisonment for the murder of Ajit Sarkar, the CPI(M) Member of Legislative Assembly, was his contact in Indian Government, and through Pappu Yadav he had indeed been given the go-ahead for the arms drop. 

The intelligence agencies have ridiculed the charge of Bleach and Davy that Indian intelligence agencies allowed the arms drop to take place. But at the same time, they have not denied that MI5 did indeed provide them with information regarding the arms drop. What they have not explained are the following: 

The Indian intelligence authorities have claimed credit for tracing the aircraft and forcing it to land in Mumbai on its return journey. This raises even more questions. If indeed they knew this was the aircraft, why was it not stopped in Chennai where it had landed before Mumbai? Why was the aircraft not surrounded immediately on landing and how was Davy allowed to escape? 

If we look at the evidence above, it is clear that something was quite wrong in what the RAW and other intelligences did on this case. We have only two possible hypotheses – either the Indian intelligence agencies are completely incompetent or they connived with the arms drop. There is no other option. Bear in mind we are talking of 300 AK 47s, a million rounds of ammunition and a host of other arms and explosives. This was not minor arms drop – if the Ananda Marg had indeed received it, it would have caused mayhem in West Bengal. That any intelligence agency worth the name, would lie back and treat this so casually, beggars belief. 

It is in this light that Bleach's statements have to be read. Unlike Davy, Bleach is not fighting extradition. He has paid the price, been in prison and has been officially pardoned. The question is what did he tell the MI5 and what did the MI5 tell RAW? 

Bleach's fax to MI5 dated18th August 1995 was published in India’s Weekly Magazine Sunday dated 1–7 January 1997 and Bleach confirms this was indeed a correct copy. The outline of the whole operations including Purulia as the target for the drop, the intent to attack the CPI(M) cadre and leaders, the kind and quantity of arms, were all faxed and informed to MI5. Bleach, in his interview with Seema Mustafa also states that he identified Varanasi as the ideal place for the interdiction of the aircraft.  

I had a conversation with MI5. I pointed out that Varanasi was the perfect place [to arrest them], they wrote that down and I know that was communicated to the Indian Government. This aircraft would be on the ground, full of guns and ammunitions, with not a drop of petrol in the tank. It could go nowhere. It could not be a more perfect situation to seize the aircraft and the weapons. I was absolutely astonished why it did not happen. If you see the fax that I sent to the ministry of defence on the 18th of August, one of the options I had suggested was that the Indian Air Force could deal with the situation very easily by simply shooting the plane down over the dropping zone and bomb the people on the ground and that would be the end of that insurgent group. My terrible worry when we took off from Varanasi was, ‘My God, this is what they are going to do’. This is the end of the line, simply shoot the aircraft down. I was even more surprised when that didn’t happen. 

R.K.Yadav, former General Secretary, RAW Employees Association, states in a letter he has widely circulated that RAW functions without any oversight and has its own agenda. He has said in his letter that there is enough circumstantial evidence that both Purulia arms drop and the Bodo extremist violence against the Mahanta Government had the intent to destabilise the duly-elected state governments. He has also demanded that all intelligence agencies including RAW should be brought under the oversight of the Parliament, as is the practice in most democratic countries. 

In 1988, Sudhir Majumdar, the Congress leader and later Chief Minister of Tripura, had been in touch with various forces in the North East to foment violence just befozre the elections. Tripura National Volunteers, lead by Bijoy Rangkhal was the instrument then. Again, RAW was widely believed to be involved. The Minister of State for Home at that time was P. Chidamabram, the current Home Minsiter. 

The government has not only not answered any of the queries, it has compounded this by refusing to question Pappu Yadav, who has been implicated by Davy. People have suggested that the game-plan of the Government is to botch the extradition case in Copenhagen. That is why the expired warrant. If a country has death penalty in its books, European courts quite often refuse extradition. Is this the reason that suddenly, after years of not implementing death penalty, we have suddenly seen two death penalties being cleared by the President? Are we creating the grounds for non-extradition on the ground that India is implementing death penalty? The charge that Davy is facing – waging war against India – carries a maximum sentence of death. Apart from expired warrants, what other surprises are we likely to see in this case? 

The question here is that if in the past RAW has been involved in such attempts, what is its role now? How much of the arms that were supplied to Jangalmahal areas was because the Central Government turned a blind eye to such activities? Is the RAW still in the same game? 

All this demands that if we have to have a healthy democracy, the RAW and other intelligence agencies must come under independent Parliamentary oversight. Otherwise, like CBI, they can become instruments of Central Government's policies to help or harm specific political parties. The Supreme Court can act as a check on such practices, but in the shadowy realm of intelligence agencies, no such oversight exists.