Allegations involving a 15-year-old case of weapons smuggling to West Bengal in India appear to have caught up with a Danish man who has now been arrested and can be expected to be deported to India.

Niels Holck, 47, has been arrested and is expected to appear before a remand magistrate tomorrow on suspicion of being one of a group of people who dropped weapons over the area of the town of Purulia in West Bengal in 1995.

It has never been ascertained exactly who the weapons were destined for. India has severally suggested that they were destined for the Ananda Marga organisation or rebels in North-east India allegedly supported by Bangladesh.

Weapons, including Kalashnikovs, sniper rifles and anti-tank weapons were dropped over Purulia on December 17, 1995 from a Latvian registered and crewed Antonov An-26 aircraft that had taken off from Burgas in Bulgaria.

Purulia inhabitants contacted local police after finding some of the weapons, by which time the aircraft had continued to Thailand. On its return, however, it entered Indian air space and was forced to land in Mumbai by Indian Air Force jets. The crew and a British national Peter Bleach were arrested.

One passenger, alleged to be Dane Niels Holck, however, managed to escape from the airport, eventually reaching Nepal where he caught a plane for Frankfurt. Holck is reported to have said that the weapons were destined for villagers in order to defend themselves against Indian forces.

Holck was formerly known as Niels Christian Nielsen. In an interview with the Danish Broadcasting Corporation in 2007, Holck suggested the weapons had indeed been destined for Ananda Marg.

“I took part in challenging a government that oppresses its citizens and I wanted to help this spiritual movement. I believe that everyone has a right to defend themselves if they are oppressed,” he is quoted as saying.

Although all those caught were sentenced to life imprisonment, Bleach is said to have been released after eight years in prison, while the Latvian crew was released after five years following intervention from then Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Purulia is the westernmost district of West Bengal’s 19 districts and has a population of some 2.5 million, with the town of Purulia as its administrative centre with a population of some 114,000. West Bengal has Calcutta/Kolkata as its economic centre.