No politician link with Purulia accused: CBI

No politician link with Purulia accused: CBI

CBI on Friday said there was no evidence to link any Indian politician with Purulia arms drop case accused Kim Davy in the wake of his claim even as West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee demanded a judicial probe into the "political conspiracy".

The central investigation agency dismissed claims of Davy that the clandestine work of arms being dropped in Purulia from a foreign plane in 1995 was carried out by "political forces" at the Centre to destabilise the Left front Government of West Bengal which at that time was headed by Jyoti Basu.

The agency said it has "clinching" evidence against alleged "act of terror" by Davy, the mastermind, and is making all efforts to bring him to India to face trial in the case.

"CBI has clinching evidence against Kim Davy and has elaborate details about the manner in which he carried out the Purulia arms drop. There is no evidence that any government agency or Indian politician helped him," CBI spokesperson Dharini Mishra said in New Delhi.

Davy had claimed to a TV channel that the then P V Narasimha Rao government had plotted the operation to destabilise the West Bengal government by arming locals in the state.

He had also claimed that India's external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) planned the operation with the help of its British counterpart MI-5 on the Centre's directions.

"CBI is making all efforts to bring him (Davy) to India. CBI has been able to establish in Indian court and to Danish Government that Davy's crime is tantamount to act of terror," she said in the statement.

High level Union government sources said yesterday Davy's claim is "far fetched" and a "tactic to complicate" the process of his extradition from Denmark since the CBI is making all out efforts to bring him back to India.

A lower court in Denmark has ordered the extradition of Niels Christien Nielsen alias Kim Davy to India following which he approached the higher court in that country, challenging the lower court order.

In Kolkata, Bhattacharjee came out with a statement asking the Centre to order a judicial probe.

"A political conspiracy has been exposed in the media behind the arms drop 16 years ago. And in this context and in the interest of internal security and the gravity of the incident therein, I demand a judicial probe," the chief minister said.

Recalling the dropping of a huge cache of arms from a plane "meant for the Anandmargis" in Purulia at midnight on December 17, 1995, the chief minister said, "An alert message from the Union home ministry reached the state home department a few days after the incident.