At 10.10 p.m. on August 2, 1984, the manager of the Meenambakkam International Airport received a call from an anonymous person, who claimed that two dark brown suitcases packed with bombs were with the Customs. Asked to specify the kind of bombs, the caller curtly replied, “Rock-blasting material. Don’t ask too many questions.” The manager immediately passed on the information to his superior.
He contacted the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Airport Security, and the Deputy Superintendent of Police. One of the officers merely thanked him and put the receiver down. He tried to contact the airport police station but in vain. He went and told Customs officials about the call. They laughed and said it could be a hoax and the suitcases probably contained some contraband. At 10.45 p.m., the anonymous caller rang up again and said the bombs would explode at 11 p.m.”
At 10.52 p.m., the bombs exploded when a baggage loader attempted to remove them from the Customs area. Over 31 persons, including 23 Sri Lankan nationals, were killed and 38 were injured in the explosion that rocked the international arrival hall. It was so powerful that the head of one of the victims was severed and flung 150 feet away.
Ceiling collapses
The explosion brought the concrete ceiling of the arrival hall down and dismembered several passengers from Colombo waiting for an early morning flight to Abu Dhabi. The concrete roof of the Customs baggage inspection hall crumbled. Debris and splinters of glass panes were strewn all over the arrival hall and the adjoining tarmac, The Hindu reported.
Immediately, CB-CID sleuths, led by Director-General of Police (Intelligence) K. Mohandas, began an investigation and registered a case (Cr. No. 53/84). A high-level inquiry was also conducted by Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) C.K.S. Raje.
A few hours before the explosion, the identification of the baggage of passengers travelling by Air Lanka flight UL-122, which left for Colombo at 8.10 p.m., was carried out by Customs officials. With the exception of the two suitcases, all the pieces of the baggage were identified by the passengers and loaded into the aircraft. No one identified the two suitcases. As 96 of the 97 passengers boarded the aircraft, there was no claimant for the suitcases that were taken back to the departure lounge and handed over to Customs officials as required by the rules. The Customs officials transferred them to the arrival hall. They had to go through a procedure before opening any unidentified or unclaimed baggage. Before they could initiate the procedure, the explosion occurred at 10.52 p.m.
One passenger, whose name was given as Kathiresan Maheshwaran, did not turn up for the security check; nor did he take the flight. It was believed that the suitcases, which had a tag for transport to Colombo, might belong to him.
Resolved in a week
The police unravelled the mystery within a week. The investigation revealed the involvement of a small group, called Tamil Eelam Army, from Sri Lanka. It was led by Kathiresan, alias ‘Panagoda’ Maheswaran. He had the moniker for his daring escape from the maximum-security prison at Panagoda in Sri Lanka. He was a chemical engineering graduate from London University and an expert in making explosives. The others in his team were Vigneswara Raja, retired Collector of Customs, and Thambiraja, both Sri Lankan nationals; Vijayakumar and Loganathan, residents of Chennai working for Air Lanka; and Chandrakumar, a constable attached to the airport police station.
From a suburban house in Madras, a timing device was seized, along with 100 kg of gelatine sticks, detonator wires, red phosphorus and sodium metal, crystal capacitors, and one kg of potassium cyanide. The probe revealed that the bomb used at the airport was made at the house, and this conclusion was corroborated by the arrested Sri Lankan nationals.
A retired IPS officer, who served in the Intelligence Wing, said their aim was not to blast the Madras airport but to plant a bomb on the Air Lanka plane leaving for Colombo, with the bomb timed to explode at the Colombo airport. Their plan to send the bomb to Colombo by an Air Lanka flight could not succeed and the bomb, instead, exploded at the Chennai airport. One-upmanship among the Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups was also a reason.
“There was a disinformation campaign that the blast was the work of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, with a view to discrediting the Tamil militants at the behest of the Sri Lankan government. The story was put into my ears even officially,” Mohandas said in his affidavit before the Jain Commission, which probed the conspiracy aspect of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The police charged 11 accused persons under the Indian Penal Code, the Explosive Substances Act, and the Passports Act.
The main accused was Kathiresan, who along with Thambiraja and others, entered into a criminal conspiracy during the period from February to July, 1984, to cause a blast in Colombo to harm the Sri Lankan Army. This was meant as a retaliation for the “excesses” committed by the Army on the Tamil civilians in northern Sri Lanka. The accused persons purchased explosives and detonators from National Trading Company at Palayamkottai and stored them in a house at Anna Nagar in Madras.
The probe also revealed that Kathiresan had initially attempted to board an Air Lanka flight from Madras to Colombo on July 31, 1984, along with two suitcases filled with explosives. However, at 6 p.m., when he got the suitcases weighed at the checking counter, the weight was found to be in excess by 35 kg. Since he did not have the money to pay the extra charge, he cancelled the ticket and came back with the two suitcases.
At 6 p.m. on August 2, he again went to the airport to board the Air Lanka flight to Colombo. Kathiresan got the baggage checked in and paid an extra fee. Each of the two boxes weighed 55 kg. To misguide the investigators, he got his name changed in the passenger manifest to Jadiresan. The two boxes were sent to the Customs hall for checking. Since Kathiresan did not come forward to get the suitcases checked, the flight left without him and the boxes. He left the airport, leaving the suitcases abandoned in the Customs hall. Realizing that the bomb would explode at the airport, he made anonymous calls, the police said in the charge sheet.
Two turn approvers
K.S. Radhakrishnan, advocate and political activist, said that when the police filed a charge sheet, four of them, including Kathiresan, Thambiraja and Vigneswara Raja, jumped bail.
“In fact, T.S. Killivalavan and I stood sureties for two of them. Since they escaped, we had to lose our properties,” he said. Two others turned approvers. Hence, the case was tried against five of the accused persons. Saravanabhavan, Chandrakumar, Loganathan, Vijayakumar, and Balasubramaniam were convicted and sentenced by the Principal Sessions Court, Chengalpattu, in 1989.
However, on appeal, the Madras High Court acquitted them in 2000. Kathiresan was acquitted by the trial court in 2004 on the ground that the witnesses at the airport had not identified him and no evidence was available to establish that he was the person who had made the anonymous calls. The Tamil Eelam Army thinned down and faded.
DGCA’s report pinpointed lapses
The DGCA’s report pointed out lapses in vigilance at the airport. The Hindu reported that after receiving the anonymous calls, the airport officer failed to inform the general manager of the International Airports Authority of India (IAAI), the airport health officer, and the assistant director, civil aviation security. No senior officer of any agency had reached the airport before the explosion, despite the warning. For example, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Airport Security, was informed of the threat, but he did not take any immediate action.
The Deputy Director (Operations), IAAI, was alerted after the first anonymous call. But “he came to the airport only after the explosion” and “did not act in a responsible manner”. The Assistant Collector of Customs, who was informed of the threat, left the airport, ignoring the fact that the suspected suitcases were in the custody of the Customs and without “giving any serious attention to the issue”.
The Deputy Chief Controller of Explosives did not come to the airport even after he was informed of the threat. He called the IAAI transport to his residence to send his officer, who was residing far away, thus causing an avoidable delay. He did not act with the urgency required by the situation, the report said. The Explosives Department in Madras, it was found, did not have any equipment to carry out a scientific investigation of bomb threats, the report said.
