Who bombed the Hilton? (17 page)

The tone that emerges from this cluster of responses is real concern about what could happen next. The whole thing has police around the world on edge. The Swedes have a Margii conference in Stockholm later that year and they are clearly nervous.

What must really get Norm's blood up, however, is some extraordinary intelligence he receives on 9 March 1978, which lassoes these far-flung events and people and pulls them inextricably together. The information is received from ‘a reliable and confidential source relative to the inquiry concerning the Ananda Marga sect'. It's probable (but difficult to tell from the police running sheets) that the information comes through Interpol, possibly via ASIO, is passed on to Special Branch and thence to the Hilton task force.

The intelligence places key Ananda Marga members associated with these hitherto discrete violent acts in Bangkok, Manila and (potentially) Australia all together in India with the imprisoned Sarkar immediately prior to the denial of his appeal and the start of the second wave of violence.

It states:

Just to be absolutely clear, Kumar spent January travelling with Shepherd and Jones, both of whom are now in jail — one for an act of violence in Manila, one for possessing explosives in Thailand — immediately after the trio met with Sarkar in India.

To be even clearer, the Thai police have intelligence that places Kumar alongside Jones, Child and Spark in the purchase of the C4 explosives in the days prior to their arrest.

The report then goes on to list the two selfimmolations, the stabbing, the possession of explosives and the arrests. The analysis confidently asserts that the ‘events in February 1978 are reminiscent of those which occurred between August and November 1977, following the rejection of an appeal for Sarkar's release in late July that year'.
²⁷

It is apparent that the unnamed informant thinks the connection between the violence in 1977, after Sarkar's first appeal is denied, and what is occurring now is obvious. In his or her view, the first wave was ‘probably perpetrated by a group of senior Ananda Marga leaders who were attempting to force the Indian
Government to release their leader'. It thus follows that the ‘events involving senior Ananda Marga members, coupled with the failure of Sarkar's [2 February appeal] indicates that a second series of violent attacks may have commenced'.
²⁸

The circumstantial evidence does indeed appear to be compelling and it's hard not to be overpowered by the desire to think, well, Abhiik Kumar (Alexander) was with all these Margiis who met with Sarkar in Patna jail, and Sarkar must have given the delegated sect leaders instructions on what to do if his second appeal failed. They wait in India until 2 February when the Indian Government denies the appeal. Next the Ananda Marga elite fly off to various destinations primed to bomb, stab or issue orders to other members to self-immolate. Many of them are apparently caught red-handed. How can all this be a coincidence? What were Kumar's instructions when he returned home the day before the Hilton bombing? A peaceful protest? Plant a bomb in a bin?

Problem is, compelling circumstantial scenarios are not a form of evidence that stands up in court. Until someone decides to confess or dob their spiritual comrades in, this intelligence is no better than gossip. It is equally possible that it is just scurrilous slander engendered by those forces (KGB, ASIO, CBI, CIA, Scotland Yard, etc.) intent on discrediting the sect. Even Sarkar weighs in from his jail cell, condemning
these attacks and declaring that, in a fabulously convoluted argument, if these acts of violence do result in the Indian Government releasing him, he will not leave his cell in protest.

The only way to operate in this environment of strongly suggestive circumstantial evidence and total denial from the suspects is to be patient — to wait them out and wear them down. The big problem is time. If this is a second wave of violence and if the pattern of the year before is anything to go by, then things have barely begun. The police from countries in Europe, Asia and North America sense this. The missives that shudder out of the telex machine from them are redolent with anxiety and fear.

Adding to this rising level of concern is an urgent telex that arrives from Thailand:

The police in Australia immediately send patrols to airports to monitor Thai airlines and inform Qantas security.

Then it gets worse.

Another bomb

On Thursday 23 March, just five and a half weeks after the Hilton fatalities, there are separate phone calls made first to North Sydney police station and then to the Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) headquarters. The anonymous caller says there is another bomb primed to go off at 7.40 pm.
¹
It has been placed at the Indian High Commissioner's residence in Canberra.

There is a frantic search of the premises and nothing is found. However, unlike the hundreds of bomb threats received over the previous five and a half weeks, this one doesn't disappoint. On Saturday morning, 25 March, about 30 hours after the anonymous call, one of the policemen stationed at the High Commission (police protection has been provided for all senior Indian officials in the lead-up to and aftermath of CHOGRM) spies a length of wire and what looks like a detonator at the base of a tree in the garden. The
Canberra-based Commonwealth Police surge into the envoy's home and evacuate the High Commissioner, Mr Jagdish Ajmani, and his family and the staff from the residence. They then fan out and begin to search the grounds. After searching for about half an hour they discover a canvas haversack under a hedge.

The experts step in and extract it with a long hook then winch it up a line. Inside is a cut down carton ‘previously used to contain 24 tins spaghetti from San Remo Macaroni Co.'.
²
The humble box holds a variety of batteries wired in series. The ‘terminals of the 703 batteries were taped together and wired to the 2372 battery'.
³
Fifteen feet (4.5 metres) from the haversack, five sticks of gelignite are found, also taped together. All these are located a few metres from a cottage at the bottom of the garden. Inside the cottage are the housekeeper, his wife and their baby. After searching further the police realise that the High Commission backs onto a busy public park where Canberrans from the suburb of Red Hill like to walk their dogs. Anyone passing could have simply tossed the bomb over the back wall. The only good news is that while the alarm was wound up, the clock was not.
⁴

The newspapers, no doubt longing for some update on the case, immediately tie the find to the Hilton: ‘… it is believed that the bomb could be similar to the one which exploded outside Sydney's Hilton Hotel last month, killing three people'.
⁵
They
also make vague allusions to the Ananda Marga being long suspected of targeting and threatening Indian nationals. The paper quotes the High Commissioner, Mr Ajmani, as having ‘no doubt who was responsible for the bomb. He said that the incident was typical of the terror some people were trying to use to force the Indian Government to release a certain person'.
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The Australian Margiis go on the offensive and issue a statement strongly denying ‘responsibility for, or any association with the planting of the bomb'. They go on to argue ‘that it seemed significant that the bomb had been discovered about a week before the sect's leader was due before an Indian appeals court, seeking to reverse criminal convictions for which he was imprisoned more than six years ago'.
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The following day Mr Ajmani gives up on the niceties and directly accuses the Ananda Marga of planting the bomb at his house and at the Hilton.
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Behind the scenes the forensic analysis of the bomb itself is equally contradictory. The police have either diverted yet another tragedy or the device was never intended to explode. The Army ballistics unit, the Commonwealth Police and members of the task force carefully break down the bomb into its bibs and bobs. The clock, the gelignite, the detonators, the tape, the wires, the haversack, even the cardboard spaghetti box of ‘normal brown corrugated type'
⁹
are described in comprehensive detail. All the components are easily
accessible (Coles and Kmart stock most of the bits required) with the exception of some batteries of:

What is clear is that whoever made it knew what they were doing.

As the task force frantically examine this new bomb, looking for similarities between it and the detritus from the Hilton blast, they are acutely aware of how swiftly the level of threats is rising. Compared to the first wave of violence in 1977, this second wave is scrappier, nastier and more ambitious. These acts seem
much more likely to result in civilian deaths and casualties. The threats are also coming in faster and faster. The team gets one lead a day after the Canberra bomb discovery. A young couple is reported being seen in the park behind the High Commission about half an hour before the bomb was found. The woman, described as slight, with shoulder-length brown hair, is said to have been carrying an army-style shoulder satchel similar to the one discovered in the grounds. Beyond that the descriptions are so general they could be anyone.
¹¹

If I were Norm I'd be conscious of how stretched things are getting. In attempting to solve a single violent crime — the Hilton bombing — he and his team are becoming embroiled in dozens of others. While he can collate the targets by nationality (Indian) and agencies (government), besides those they seem to be capable of occurring literally anywhere. There are thousands of Indian nationals holding government positions in foreign countries and thousands of members of the Ananda Marga around the world — you can hardly follow them all. Even if suspicions seem to point to Abhiik Kumar being associated with the members of the sect arrested overseas, there is nothing to say he is carrying out similar attacks in Australia. Even if he is, he could simply issue orders to others — and if so, who are they?

If things weren't complex enough, two very strange things happen. Completely out of the blue,
The
Australian
newspaper publishes an article declaring that it is possible that Mr Ajmani (or someone in his employ) planted the bomb with the express purpose of discrediting the Ananda Marga and disrupting Sarkar's final appeal process.
¹²
Although the Hilton task force has absolutely no evidence for this, the article claims a ‘police source' stated that the Canberra-based Commonwealth Police (as distinct from the Sydneybased Hilton task force) and intelligence agents ‘first agreed' it was definitely the work of the Ananda Marga. Now, however: