NEW DELHI: The CBI investigation into the Purulia airdropping incident has now riveted on presorts who had designed the plot for parachuting cache of sophisticated weapons for a militant group, expected to be working in the northeastern sector of the ‘country.
“Deepak and Randy” are the two names that have been puzzling the minds of the investigators. The investigation has revealed that the two Hong Kong based Indians, Deepak and Randy, were the brainchild of the plot, while Kim Peter Davy, the absconding member of the seven member crew of AN26.used for airdropping, was the executor.
But the CBI has no clue as to who are Deepak and Randy, though Interpol has been requested to find the real identity of the two on the basis of details given by British detainee Peter Bleach. Bleach the sources said is the only, detainee who could give some “inside? Information about the plot. The other five crewmembers, all from Latvia, have little knowledge of this “plot and were hired for a paltry sum of $1.0001, 500, top sources in CBI said.
“The key person, however, remains Davy. Who perhaps knows about the persons behind the plot and the militant group? Which was supposed to collect the airdropped weapons? Davy seems to have fled from the country, ‘a senior CBI official sia Davy had disappeared within the minutes the AN26 aircraft was force landed on December 22 at the Bombay airport.
The sources, however, ruled out that Deepak had accompanied the AN26 aircraft crew in the airdropping operation. It is also ruled out that the weapons air dropped over Purulia were meant for the LTTE outfit or any other group in Kashmir or Punjab.
‘What, however, remains puzzling are why the group, which was supposed to collect arms, did not do so immediately after the arms were parachuted.
The investigators feel that the AN26 crew had dropped arms 1015 km away from the “real” destination and that’s why the group could not have collected the arms.
Another major revelation is that the UK based Carol Airlines does not exist and even thaw the Indian cargo agents and officials of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation gave the Airlines the permission to fly over India without checking its antecedents. Reconstructing the plot on the basis of information given by Bleach and circumstantial evidence, the CBI officials said, Deepak had contacted Davy in Hong Kong and had struck the deal to smuggle some sophistic cited weapon had met Bleach and appointed him he has his “number one” deputy to execute his plans.
The duo consequently floated the name of the Carol Airlines in the UK and purchased a new Russian built ‘AN26 aircraft from Latvia. They also hired crew members from Latvia, where they were available cheaply due to massive unemployment.
The weapons listed for airdropping over Purulia were purchased from the open markets of Bulgaria and the required permission to fly over Pakistan and India with a stopover at Karachi and Calcutta for refueling was apparently obtained from Shah in Airways and Air Charier of India respectively. Davy and his ‘men’ had executed the plan immaculately, but the fact that they overshot the destination where they were supposed to airdrop weapons and no collection of the arms by ‘contacts’ at Purulia, unearthed the rarest kind of crime over committed by foreigners on Indian land, CBI officials said.
While, the officials said, Davy had struck the deal with Deepak, Bleach was the only other person, who had met Deepak in Hong Kong. He has given a description about Deepak, but insists ha the has no information about the “contacts” and the supposed beneficiary around in India. They added.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 3, 1996
