Police arrest two for conspiring to kill Indira Gandhi, claim plot part of Anand Margi plan

Singh: Abrupt change of planThe time: New Year's Day 1980, Mrs Gandhi makes a last minute air dash to Patna to campaign for her party. She addresses a hastily arranged rally in the city, then dashes back to the airport to catch her flight to Ranchi.At the airport, a party leader rushes to her side and whispers in her ear. All of a sudden the trip is cancelled. The official reason put out for the cancellation: 'bad weather and poor visibility.'At the time nobody gave the incident a second thought. Now, 20 months later, with the arrest of two young men - Kameshwar Prasad Singh and Ganesh Dutt Singh - for conspiring to kill Mrs Gandhi, the real reason for that abrupt change of plan has at last come to light.Plot: According to the police, Dutt and Prasad and a third man, Prem Shankar Poddar, had hatched a plot to kill Mrs Gandhi during the rally in Ranchi. The police also claim that the plot was a part of an Anand Margi plan to eliminate Mrs Gandhi if it was the only way to prevent her from returning to power.But beyond this the police were tight-lipped about the whole affair. In the court of the Delhi Metropolitan Magistrate, before whom the two men were produced, they pleaded that they needed time to complete their investigations. The police also despatched a police party to Calcutta to arrest Poddar who went underground as soon as the news that he was wanted spread.In Patna where investigations were continuing the police were also equally secretive about the whole affair. Said Bihar's Inspector-General of Police Syed Fazal Ahmed: "I will not say a word as the security of the nation is at stake."Though police in Patna refused to divulge how they had got wind of the plan, it was obvious that they have known about the conspiracy for quite some time now. They have had 30-year-old Prasad under arrest since May 10 last year.They got their hands on him in Bidhupur, in Vaishali district of Bihar. He was brought before the chief judicial magistrate of Hajipur charged with dacoity. The magistrate had him remanded to police custody for 10 days for 'interrogation'. This was later extended for a further 10 days.The police had apparently realised that they were onto more than an ordinary dacoit. They held onto Prasad on one pretext or another. His name later appeared in another dacoity case registered by the police in Khawajakalan in east Patna and, one month later, he was brought before a Patna magistrate. Informed sources say that his name appeared in one dacoity case after another.All the while police were fishing around for other incriminating evidence. He was transferred to Patna Central Jail where he was closely questioned by senior police officials. During interrogation he is said to have 'hinted' at a conspiracy to assassinate Mrs Gandhi, hatched "at the instance of the Anand Marg". He also allegedly named his accomplices in the plot. Later Prasad retracted this confession and refused to turn police approver.Different Version: Prasad himself tells a different version of the same tale. In June 1980 when he was being held in Patna Jail he is said to have smuggled out a note to a friend alleging that the Bihar police were trying to frame Dutt, Poddar and himself in a conspiracy.He said that the police were trying to prove a connection between this alleged attempt on Mrs Gandhi and another alleged conspiracy to kill former railway minister Lalit Narayan Mishra in which Santoshanand Awadhoot, an Anand Margi, is implicated. He alleged in his note that he was being forced to sign a confessional statement.In this note Prasad is said to have written that he had visited Ranchi on December 31, 1979. Poddar, who is a secretary of the Universal Proutist Youth Federation (UPYF), a youth organisation of the Anand Marg, also accompanied him on this visit.According to Prasad, Poddar had gone along to sort out organisational matter of the UPYF and he himself had gone for medical treatment. He said that he visited the venue of Mrs Gandhi's rally only after it was called off.The police refuse to believe that the reasons for suspiciously timed visit are so innocuous. They feel that it was part of a larger conspiracy. And they kept up their investigations tenaciously. Later, when Mrs Gandhi returned to power, the case was handed over to Delhi police who followed up the investigation and raided a house in Delhi from where they allegedly recovered several incriminating documents.Several Conspiracies: According to the police, this was only one of several conspiracies. In the Mishra murder case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) claimed that the Anand Marg had prepared a 'hit list' of people who they thought to be inimical to their organisation. Former Bihar chief minister Abdul Ghafoor was said to have been on this list at one time. Informed sources say that the Marg also had a plan to kill West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu in June after the state Government banned the organisation's ritual, the 'Tandav Nritya'. Sources say that the Bihar police got wind of the plan and passed on the information to their counterparts in West Bengal. They also say that the same three - Prasad, Dutt and Poddar - visited Delhi once to make a study of the routes frequently used by the prime minister. Prasad and Dutt are also said to have been involved in a train robbery near Mahanar in Vaishali district.At the moment the police are keeping their cards close to their chest. But senior police officers claim that a lot more startling disclosures about the Anand Marg are in the offing.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Oct 29, 2013 14:22 IST--- ENDS ---

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Police arrest two for conspiring to kill Indira Gandhi, claim plot part of Anand Margi plan

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