Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee  demanded a judicial inquiry by the Centre into the “political conspiracy” behind the entire operation of dropping arms from a foreign aircraft in Purulia.

“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 in a statement issued here.

Centre’s alert
Referring to the dropping fr­om the aircraft a huge cache of arms which was “meant for the Anandmargis” in Purulia at the midnight of 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.”

Justifying the allegation of conspiracy to topple a democratically elected government in Bengal, Bhattacherjee observed “The Central alert of December 12 was dispatched to Kolkata from Delhi by ordinary mail in a very casual manner. No advance wireless message was sent to the state on an urgent basis considering the gravity of the situation. The mail reached after the arms drop in Purulia.”

Bhattacharjee, who holds home (police) portfolio, said the government had handed over responsibility of the inquiry to the CBI conside­ring the gravity of the incident. “All seized sophisticated arms were handed over to the CBI by the police.. and the .. ar­ms since the days of inquiry were in the custody of the CBI,” he said.