Judgment in Purulia armsdrop case deferred to January 31

Judgment in Purulia armsdrop case deferred to January 31
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

CALCUTTA, JANUARY 17: The much-awaited verdict on the Purulia armsdrop case, scheduled to be delivered today by city civil and sessions judge P K Biswas, was deferred till Janaury 31. The judge did not cite any reason for the deferment of the judgement and said he would hear on January 19.

Key accused Peter Bleach, a British national, was present at the court along with the accused Latvians Igor Timerman, Igor Moskitivine, Oleg Gaidash, Alex Klaishin, E Antimenko and an Indian Vinay Kumar Singh.

While Bleach was pleading his own case, special public prosecutor Sisir Ghosh, appearing for CBI, was present along with the counsel for the Latvians Shyamal Ghosh. Counsel for Vinay Kumar, Shankar Thakur did not appear.

Prime accused Kim Peter Davy, a New Zealander, along with co-accused Deepak, alias Dayanand, alias Daya M Anand, still remained at large. A huge cache of arms and ammunition was dropped on four villages in Purulia district from a Russian AN-26 aircraft on the night of December 17, 1995. The armsdropped included among other things 241 AK-47/56 assault rifles, 79 anti-tank grenades, 62 hand grenades, 10 rocket launchers, 11 nine-mm pistols, and 3,853 rounds of nine mm ammunition, considered to have the potential of waging a war againt the country.

After dropping the arms, the aircraft went to Phuket in Thailand returning again to India to land at Sahar airport in Mumbai where the aircraft was seized and its crew arrested.

Probe into the armsdrop was initially entrusted to the West Bengal CID, but towards the end of December 1995, the CBI took over the investigation.

Trial for the case began at the city civil and sessions court from March 11 1998. In course of the trial, the acccused moved the Supreme Court and the Calcutta high court for quashing charges against them, but both pleas were turned down.

They also moved the Calcutta High Court pleading that the venue be shifted from the city civil and sessions court, but that plea too was rejected.