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Bangladesh linked to arms drop in Purulia
The arms dropped over Purulia in West Bengal in December 1995 were purchased on the orders of a member of the office of the then prime minister of Bangladesh, Begum Khaleda Zia, show documents accessed by Hindustan Times. Abhishek Sharan reports. Stranger than fiction
The arms dropped over Purulia in West Bengal in December 1995 were purchased on the orders of a member of the office of the then prime minister of Bangladesh, Begum Khaleda Zia, show documents accessed by Hindustan Times.
Two End User’s Certificates — mandatory for arms deals in the international market — issued by Bangladesh to Bulgarian suppliers were signed by this official, Mohammed Shubid Ali Bhuiyan, the then principal staff officer to Zia.
One of the certificates signed by Bhuiyan said the arms “will be used by the Bangladesh Army and will not be exported to any other country”.
But they landed up in Purulia.
Though the two certificates form part of the evidence submitted to a Kolkata court by the CBI, nothing was known of them till now because this part of the proceedings was not open to the press or public.
Despite the arrests and convictions, including that of high-profile British national Peter Bleach, the Purulia arms case remains unsolved 14 years later. Investigators still don’t know who was to receive the arms.
Bhuiyan would know. But several attempts made by CBI investigators to speak to him were stonewalled.
Bangladesh does not see it that way.
“If the Indian authorities make a request to us, through the official channels, to probe this individual’s role in the Purulia case, we will cooperate,” said Bangladesh deputy high commissioner in India, Mashrafe Binte Shams.
“We will have to see if there is any merit in their case (against Bhuiyan),” Shams added.
Sixty-four-year-old Bhuiyan, who served as the principal staff officer from 1991 to 1996 and retired in 1997, is related to Begum Zia’s husband, former president and founder of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party Gen Ziaur Rahman.
Bhuiyan has since changed camps and is now an MP from the Awami League, led by present PM Begum Sheikh Hasina.
The British police in raids on Bleach’s estate found the End User’s Certificates, which established Bhuiyan’s connection to the Purulia case.
This was confirmed by Stephen Elcock, a British Intelligence officer who assisted the CBI in the probe, at an in camera hearing before the court.
One of the certificates – issued on November 25 1995 – authorized Bleach’s front company, Border Technology and Innovations Ltd, to conclude the contract with the Bulgarian suppliers.
The whole shipment, which cost $169,000, was loaded on an AN-32 at Bulgaria’s Bourgas airport on December 10. And the drop over Purulia happened a week after on December 17, 1995.
