Purulia arms drop case: Kim Davy not to be extradited

NEW DELHI: Kim Davy, the main accused in the Purulia arms drop case, will not be extradited to India for now.

A five-member Constitutional bench of the Danish high court has rejected Davy's extradition plea in connection with the Purulia arms drop case.

The Danish government had allowed the extradition of Davy after getting a number of assurances from India with two important ones being that no death penalty would be given to him and permission to serve imprisonment, if decided by court, in Denmark prisons.

The order was challenged by Davy in a Danish court which ruled in his favour.

The Danish government had appealed against the order before a five-judge bench of the high court which had reserved its decision.

CBI had registered the case on December 28, 1995, after sophisticated arms, including AK-47 assault rifles, anti-tank grenades and other weapons were dropped from a foreign plane on the fields of Purulia in West Bengal on the night of December 17, 1995.

An Interpol Red Corner Notice was issued against Davy in 1996 on the request of the CBI.

Since he was traced in Denmark in 2001, efforts continued to extradite him to India even though there was no extradition treaty between the two countries.

CBI had claimed it has "clinching" evidence against Davy's alleged act of terror and is making all efforts to bring him to India to face trial in the case.

Davy had claimed to a news channel last month that the then PV Narasimha Rao government had plotted the operation to destabilise the Marxist government in West Bengal by arming locals, a charge dismissed by the Centre.

source: TOI / Agencies