PURULIA
It has been 30 years since weapons fell from the sky in West Bengal’s Purulia district, yet some answers still hang in the air. “This matter cannot remain hidden; they came in a plane. The questions you’re asking me should be asked of the government,” says Acarya Anirvanananda Avadhuta, rector master of the Ananda Marga Pracaraka Samgha, a spiritual organisation police claim was the intended recipient of the weapons. “How did this plane from outside India land here? There was security. Did Ananda Marga have the power to do all this? We are [easy] to blame; give us a bad name and finish us.”
On December 17, 1995, an Antonov aircraft carrying Danish mastermind Kim Davy, British national Peter Bleach and a five-member Latvian crew flew low and dropped 500 rifles, including AK-47s, 2.5 lakh rounds of ammunition, a dozen rocket launchers, anti-tank grenades and night-vision equipment—altogether worth half a million dollars at the time—between two hillocks in Purulia.
Job done, they flew to Thailand, where they reportedly had a great time. On the way back, they stopped to refuel in Madras. When they took off again, the Indian Air Force intercepted them and forced them to land in Mumbai, where they were apprehended. All except Davy were arrested, jailed and released over the next decade.
Davy had given officials the slip in Mumbai. “He knew he was going to be arrested, so on the pretext of paying the landing charges, he escaped to Pune, then Nepal and then beyond,” says then superintendent of police in the CBI Loknath Behera, who investigated the case. “The Latvians and Bleach got stuck, got arrested, and the plane was seized.”
Bleach was lodged in Kolkata’s Presidency jail for eight years; he was pardoned in 2004, after the British government under prime minister Tony Blair intervened.
But the question is, why were the weapons dropped? One theory was that the Ananda Margis—having been targeted for their beliefs—wanted to overthrow the Jyoti Basu government in West Bengal. In 1982, a mob had torched alive 16 of its sadhus and one sadhvi on the Bijon bridge in Kolkata in broad daylight. No arrests were made. Perhaps to avenge their deaths, it was speculated, the Ananda Margis needed arms.
“Almost 50 sadhus have been killed. They (Marxist government) misunderstood Anand Marga and wanted to finish them,” says Acarya Anirvanananda. “The communists were against religion. Before Ananda Marga came here, there was no school or college; people were being exploited. If those people became enlightened, they would finish the exploiters. So, they thought they would boot out Ananda Marga.”
He adds that under prime minister Indira Gandhi, no one could publicly claim to be an Ananda Margi. “Ananda Marga property was demolished across the country. If sadhus were seen in traditional attire, they would be tortured,” he claims.
Notably, Ananda Margis distance themselves from prime suspect Davy, who police claim was a member of the organisation. “There is no confirmation and, even if he is, he could be a follower. Anyone could be a follower,” says Acarya Anirvanananda. “Why hasn’t he been caught till now? To hide the facts, the government did this.”
Behera disagrees. “We proved Davy is an Ananda Margi,” he says. “Another three people who were chargesheeted for conspiracy were Ananda Margis. Of course, Bleach was not an Ananda Margi, nor was the Latvian crew. But the question was, why were the [weapons] lying near their (Ananda Margi) headquarters? There were a lot of documents related to their involvement. We chargesheeted the accused on that basis. We proved that they were the people who wanted the arms.”
Bleach’s 1997 letter from jail to David Belgrove, the then second secretary in the British High Commission in Calcutta, mentioned a meeting in Bangkok. It was between Davy, a local financier of the arms deal named Mak, and Randy or Swami Suryananda Avadhuta of Ananda Marga. Randy absconded, but other suspects from Ananda Marga were rounded up.
The investigation spanned more than 40 countries, formally and informally. The CBI sent letters rogatory to 13 countries, including the UK, Bangladesh and Thailand. Based on the evidence gathered, witnesses from the UK deposed before the Calcutta court. The CBI took 90 days to chargesheet the accused, while investigation continued.
Davy was found in Copenhagen in 2001; his mother was unwell. The Danish government initially denied Davy’s presence. When the CBI provided evidence, a Danish court rejected India’s request to extradite Davy, saying he risked being mistreated in India.
And so it stands.
Back to that eventful night. Torit Banerjee was one of two official eyewitnesses who helped investigators, including Interpol, and the central and state police. “We found a parachute with weapons like AK-47, AK-56, 9mm pistols, hand grenades, and material to wash guns. There was also a rocket launcher, which people took home on their shoulders,” says Banerjee. He adds that the Ananda Marga headquarters was about 5km from the spot where the arms were dropped. “Apart from us (he and the other eyewitness, Subhash Tantu Bai), no one informed the police. Many took [the weapons] home. We informed the police about the arms dropped at Khatanga [village] because it was close to the Bihar border, and it would be harmful if [the weapons] fell into the wrong hands.”
Banerjee says that several villagers buried the weapons in their homes, hid them in wells and some even dismantled them. Despite police measures to recover the weapons, some were sold.
Tantu Bai, the other official eyewitness, saw the weapons after his mother told him about something strange. She was washing vessels at a nearby pond at dawn when she saw a parachute on a tree and a box that she mistook for an elephant. They had heard a loud sound, like a bomb, the previous night. As Khatanga had dense tree cover and there was a fear of loitering tigers, the villagers did not step out. “The police came immediately and began recovery,” he says. “We did not open the boxes ourselves as we were scared; there was ‘explosives’ written on them. I told my family not to touch them.”
His sister-in-law Shambari also saw the boxes, but did not give a statement to the police. “We did not see anything as it was packed and we villagers didn’t understand,” she says. “We got scared. The police came and the villagers ran away.”
The weapons were dropped in the villages of Jhalda, Khatanga, Belamu and Maramu. The main drop zone was apparently an Ananda Margi building called ‘The White House’, which investigators believe Davy and his team got wrong.
One of the reasons for this could be the light outside Deepak Singh’s house in a neighbouring village. A lot of people had gathered there after the funeral of his five-year-old daughter. Singh was popular in the village and the turnout was large. Banerjee was there, too, and that is why he remembers the time of the weapons drop—11-11:30pm.
Says Singh: “It was a cold winter day and this took place in the middle of the night, when no one is usually found outside. But everyone could hear the noise at 11:30pm. There was a bright light outside my house as there were 500 to 700 people there. Also, labourers were working on a rail line, and that light was on, too. That could have been mistaken for a signal.”
Singh says that, even in that state, he helped recover several weapons from villagers. “We asked villagers to give arms and we kept them at Jhalda police station,” he says. “There were a lot of police raids asking people to return arms.”
Like Singh, All India Forward Bloc leader Bindeshwar Mahato—a former MLA—went to several localities to convince villagers to return the weapons. “I went with the police and the district magistrate,” he says. “Some villagers had buried the guns and they were scared. We explained the situation and 15 to 20 guns were recovered. There were discussions that the place was an Ananda Marga locality and their White House was the target, but there is no proof.”
Like others who saw the guns, Mahato, too, wonders how the case did not reach its logical conclusion despite the involvement of global investigating agencies.
Says Avijit Chowdhury, a freelance journalist: “We saw the weapons and even held them. There were so many theories and yet no truth. Some said the weapons came to Purulia to be sold, some said they were to finish off the CPI(M) and some said they were dropped to create tension in the area. Now, 30 years later, it is still a mystery.”
Banerjee and Tantu Bai, the two official eyewitnesses, were promised jobs for their help to the police. Instead, they were given a Rs10,000 cash reward each, which they refused. “The police, the CBI and even [prime minister] Atal Bihari Vajpayee came to the spot and spoke about jobs. I wrote exams and got a (government) job on merit,” says Banerjee. “We kept writing letters and we had thick files; nothing happened.”
For 10 years they ran from pillar to post, got recommendations from high-level officers at the Centre and the state, and gave the necessary entrance exams. But, no luck.
Perhaps that is another mystery that will never be solved.
The world of Bleach
THE WEEK published the story of Peter Bleach in its October 27, 1996 issue. Written by journalist-author Jon Stock, the exclusive article recounted the dramatic events surrounding the Purulia arms drop of December 17, 1995.
At the centre of the story was Peter Bleach, a charismatic and controversial Englishman who was arrested and lodged in Calcutta’s Presidency jail for eight years.
Bleach’s life reads like a spy thriller. Raised in Yorkshire, he joined the British Army Intelligence Corps, but was discharged early because, as per his army report, “He was lazy and didn’t turn up to work.”
He then spent a decade in the army in Zimbabwe, rising to the rank of major while working in the prison service. During this time, he built close ties with former SAS (Special Air Service) members and intelligence operatives, building a network that would shape his later career.
After returning to Britain, Bleach set up a private detective agency, became active in Conservative Party politics, and earned a reputation as both charming and reckless.
But he still wasn’t satisfied with life, and embarked on his own career as an arms dealer. In 1995, he was approached by a Danish intermediary, Kim Davy, with a proposal to supply a large quantity of arms to an unspecified destination in the Indian subcontinent.
Bleach later claimed that he quickly realised the deal was potentially linked to terrorism. He claimed to have informed Britain’s Defence Export Sales Organisation and kept British authorities updated. He was allegedly told that his information was being passed on to appropriate agencies. However, British officials said he had been clearly warned not to proceed.
Despite this, Bleach continued. He helped procure an Antonov-26 aircraft, recruited Latvian crew and arranged for weapons to be purchased in eastern Europe. On December 17, the aircraft flew from Karachi, refuelled in India, and dropped the arms over Purulia before continuing to Thailand.
Astonishingly, the aircraft passed through Indian airspace without interception. It was only when they returned on December 21—they refuelled in Madras and then took off for Karachi—that the Indian Air Force intercepted and forced them to land in Mumbai.
Bleach and the Latvians were arrested, but Davy escaped and vanished. This fuelled speculation that he might have had intelligence backing.
Bleach said that the Indian authorities had been forewarned, but that bureaucratic failures and miscommunication allowed the drop to proceed. A crucial warning letter from New Delhi to West Bengal reportedly arrived too late.
Critics, though, argue that Bleach was acting primarily out of financial desperation and naivety—he was trying to protect himself by partially informing authorities while pushing ahead with a lucrative deal. He had apparently celebrated in Phuket after the drop and had failed to alert authorities again. The CBI believed Davy was the mastermind and linked the weapons to the Ananda Marga sect, though these allegations were contested.
Bleach was awaiting trial when THE WEEK published the story. He believed he was being made a scapegoat to cover institutional failures. Whether he was an intelligence asset gone wrong or just an overconfident arms dealer, the mission he took on remains one of India’s most baffling security breaches.