Siliguri: The possibility of an airdrop in a North Bengal village close to the Bangladesh border was completely ruled out on October 5 with the authorities calling off their two-day search operations with nothing being found.

"Now we can say with authority that there was no air drop at Mukdumgach village in North Dinajpur district," district superintendent of police Arun Sharma told.

The entire area, including a pond, where the air intrusion reported by villagers was supposed to have taken place was thoroughly searched and drew a blank, he said. "We called off operations this morning when nothing was found from the pond, which was completely drained by pumps."

Additional DIG Border Security Force (BSF), North Bengal Frontier, P P Gupta, who was also present, confirmed that nothing was found.

He said that to put the issue beyond doubt he had collected water from the pond in which villagers had claimed that an object was thrown on October 3.

The villagers had reported sighting a low flying aircraft, which dropped a sack like object into the pond, followed by a loud explosion, after which the colour of the water changed.

"There was no chemical reaction, it was just water of a village pond," Gupta said.

Since the area fell within one and half km of the Bangladesh border there was initial apprehension of an airdrop on Indian territory by a foreign aircraft in a repeat of the 1995 Purulia arms drop.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has already issued a statement saying that none of its aircraft was in the area at that point of time.

PTI