Purulia arms-drop case witness found murdered in Bihar

Mangla Prasad, a government witness in the 1995 Purulia arms-drop case was found murdered in Bihar, the police said.

Mr. Prasad’s body was found near the Kiul railway junction in Lakhisarai district on Sunday. There were signs of strangulation on the body. According to a preliminary investigation Mr. Prasad was suspected to have been murdered at a different location and his body dumped near the railway tracks, Amitabh Kumar Das, superintendent of police, Railway police, Jamalpur, told The Hindu.

The police recovered a mobile from the body and informed Mr. Prasad’s family. After conducting the post-mortem examination, the body was handed over to them. However, the family did not inform the police that Mr. Prasad was a government witness in the Purulia case. “We learnt from our sources,” Mr. Das said.

The police have lodged a case of murder and are investigating into the circumstances of Mr. Prasad’s death.

Mr. Prasad, a taxi driver of Babadpur area in Varanasi, had gone missing early this month.

The Purulia arms drop case dates back to December 17, 1995, in which sophisticated arms were dropped from an Antonov An-26 aircraft in Purulia district in West Bengal. The Central Bureau of Investigation probed the case.

Key accused Niels Christian Nielson alias Kim Davy, a Danish citizen, and Peter Bleach, a British citizen, were said to have stayed in Varanasi for four days before the date of the incident.

Courtesy: The Hindu