“There should be a judicial inquiry under the Commission of Inquiry Act and a sitting judge of the Supreme Court should head that inquiry,” party general secretary Praksah Karat told media here.
He alleged gross negligence of the then Central government in handling the same. Karat said the arms drop was meant to destabilise the then Jyoti Basu government in West Bengal.
The party also demanded that former MP Pappu Yadav should be interrogated as accused Kim Davy has told a news channel that he had helped him escape from the country.
Karat demanded there has to be an inquiry by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court into the circumstances of the arms drop in Purulia and to uncover the network responsible.
A Latvian aircraft had dropped a huge cache of arms, including several hundred AK-47 rifles, and over a million rounds of ammunition in West Bengal’s Purulia district on the night of December 17, 1995.
The main accused, who fled to Denmark later, alleged in an interview on a TV channel that the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and politicians were complicit in the operation.
Karat also sought the extradition of the main accused Kim Peter Davy, alias Niels Christian Nielsen, who has been traced to Danish capital Copenhagen.
Several days after the Latvian craft re-entered Indian airspace, it was intercepted by MiG 21s of the Indian Air Force and forced to land in Mumbai, but Davy escaped.
“The extradition of Kim Davy alias Nielsen should be expedited. There should be no further delay because he is the kingpin in the whole operation,” said Karat.
“First Pappu Yadav should be interrogated by the authority because details are specific and there are sufficient circumstantial evidence about his links with this whole matter,” Karat said.
In the aftermath of the Purulia arms drop it was known that the British intelligence agency MI5 had informed RAW about the proposed airdrop in late November 1995. The then British Home Secretary had confirmed this in a press conference in Delhi on January 5, 1996. The RAW had alerted the Home Ministry and other authorities. Yet, the West Bengal Government was sent this information by registered post which reached after the arms drop.
The investigations and the court trial the Purulia arms drop had proved that the arms were meant for the Ananda Marg which was planning to use it to foment violence to destabilize the Left Front government.