"It's raining guns and bullets"

On the cold, foggy morning of December 18, 1995, people of several villages in Purulia district, West Bengal woke up to an unseasonal, overnight downpour of a huge amount of firearms, ammunitions and explosives. Purulia is a sleepy district. Generally, nothing much happens there but once in a way, the district throws up something truly sensational. A few years earlier, the district had seen three Khalistani terrorists accidentally “discovered” by a routine police patrol. The terrorists kept the whole state Police force on its toes for days with the help of an AK-47. But this arms-drop incident was truly out of the world. Senior officers of CID were deployed and were camping at the spot. So were officers of State Intelligence Branch. Every day, there were new theories, prominent among them was that it was the handiwork of a hitherto unknown terrorist outfit called Laldangis. Since the area was close to Bihar, there were other theories, depending on flights of imagination by any particular officer or a particular journalist on the day. 

At that time, I was SP, Calcutta airport. Like everyone else, I was also reading reports on the incident day after day and was much intrigued. This was happening 300 kilometres away and I didn’t think it had anything to do with me.

 

A day or two after the incident, I received a call from DIG, CID who said all the clues they were chasing had run up against a dead end and could I probably try some sleuthing at the airport, just on the off chance. This was not my remit nor did I think there was any fruitful way I could contribute. Further, there was a Prime Ministerial movement so I got busy with that and the request clean slipped my mind. After the VVIP movement was over, the DIG again called and reminded. Seeing as how he was serious, I thought I’d give it a try. I went to the Air Traffic Control at Calcutta airport and asked to check all the non-scheduled flights for December 17 and night of December 17/18. To my horror, there were 84 such flights, including the overflight movements where the aircrafts didn’t land at the airport. I went through the log for each and every such aircraft movement and zeroed in on a few which pertained to the 9 PM – 5 AM window.

 

Luckily, the Watch Supervisory Officers (WSOs) who were on duty around the time could be contacted. One of them told me about a flight coming to land at the airport shortly before midnight. It was cleared to land but the pilot said he didn’t want to because the visibility was poor, at only 500 metres. Then the pilot flew away saying he would land at Yangon, Myanmar. A little later, the flight came back again, reported that he was denied permission to land at Yangon and decided to land at Calcutta despite the visibility having further reduced to 250 metres. After refuelling, the flight had gone on to Phuket, Thailand. We sat down with a scale and with the approximate speed of the aircraft as determined from the flight plan from Varanasi to Calcutta, calculated the aerial distance from Calcutta to Purulia and likely time for the aircraft to fly there and back. The times exactly matched the time the aircraft would take to pretend to be Yangon-bound from Calcutta and reappearing. [Later investigation revealed that although the conclusion was correct, the deductive process had an inadvertent flaw. About this, later.]

 

I came back to my office and reported the result of my efforts to DIG, CID who was immediately convinced that this was the rogue aircraft. I also told him that the aircraft had gone to Phuket, Thailand and had planned a return to Karachi via Calcutta (for refuelling) on December 21 night. Computers had just about seeped into our consciousness around that time. The DIG, CID rushed in with a Dy SP, a typewriter, papers and seal of office. Together, we went to the air traffic control, formally requisitioned for and “seized” the relevant papers (logs, etc.) and recorded the statements of the WSOs. I also informed the Military Liaison Unit (MLU) at the airport to inform all concerned regarding the aircraft (call sign YL-LDB) and to detain it, if detected.

 

That day, in the evening, I told the wife that I might just have cracked the Purulia case. She was dismissive – “You! The entire Police force is at its wit’s end, you cracked it! Tell me another!” I also thought it was too easy and pat. However, next night, the return flight was due. I assembled the requisite force and waited at the airport to surround and search it as soon as it landed and detain the occupants. I had taken the clearance from our top brass. We kept waiting and waiting but the flight didn’t come. I was disappointed and thought it was not to be.

 

The next morning, as soon as I reached office, I received a call from MLU, Calcutta that the aircraft had decided to go to Karachi via Madras. Unfortunately, despite the MLU alert, there was some communication gap and the flight had managed to take off from Madras for Karachi, unmolested. However, fortunately, it was force-landed at Bombay. I informed DIG, CID accordingly. I thought, that would be the end of my involvement in the case.

 

In the evening, as I was about to head back home after office, DIG, CID called me and said that the case had now unravelled and I was to accompany him to Bombay by the next available flight for effecting the arrest of the people in the aircraft and further investigation. The next flight was just about an hour away and I didn’t even have time to go home for picking up a change of clothes. Being wiser after the consequence of the last show of bravado, this time, I merely informed the wife that I had to rush to Bombay on important work.

 

DIG, CID landed up at the airport with a Dy SP who would be the first Investigating Officer of the case until CBI took over. He had scraped together whatever contingency funds were available in his office. I begged and borrowed some money from some of my staff. Even so, there wasn’t enough money for three flight tickets to Bombay – these were high-airfare days and air travel was a super-luxury. Suddenly, the DIG remembered that he had probably not yet given out his entire salary at home and there might be something left over. He rummaged in his briefcase and found enough money to make up for the shortfall. Thus, we managed the tickets to Bombay and went to arrest the prime accused Peter Bleach and the Latvian crew.

 

The next morning, the newspapers had blazing headlines as to how the sensational case had been solved and an ace (?!) team of three from West Bengal had rushed to Bombay for the arrests. The reports gave the names of the “ace” team members. After reading it all, the wife thought, maybe, just maybe, I might amount to something. At a future, indeterminate date.

(The aircraft YL-LDB)

[To be continued]