NEW DELHI, Sept 24: India on Monday said it planned fresh efforts to win the extradition of a Danish gun-runner who parachuted weapons into the Indian state of West Bengal nearly two decades ago to help insurgents.

New Delhi will “push the case through diplomatic and legal channels” for the extradition of Niels Holck, also known as Kim Davy, said K.S. Dhatwalia, a senior official in the Indian home ministry.

India regards the Danish citizen as the mastermind of the 1995 arms drop of hundreds of assault rifles, pistols, anti-tank grenades, rocket launchers and thousands of rounds of ammunition in West Bengal’s Purulia district.

Indian convicted five Russians and British national Peter Bleach for their part in the delivery, but Holck escaped. Since then the Indian government has been pursuing attempts to get Holck to stand trial in India.

“We will continue to make all the necessary effort to get Davy (Holck) to India. This is a very sensitive case and we will not let it collapse,” Dhatwalia said.

Holck has admitted parachuting four tonnes of anti-tank missiles and other weapons into the Indian state and wrote an autobiography titled “They Call Me a Terrorist”, which recounts delivering the arms.

New Delhi says it can guarantee Davy will be properly treated, that his trial will take place in open court and that he would be given consular access. But a Danish court has said there was a “real risk” Davy’s human rights would be violated.

Bleach was released in 2004 after serving an eight-year jail sentence while the Russians were freed in 2000 following appeals by Moscow.—AFP