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Bofors beneficiaries scuttling probe: Gujral

Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral has said that suspected beneficiaries of the alleged payoffs in the Rs 15 billion Bofors gun deal were trying to scuttle the investigation in the case.

''You know the people who are being suspected of having a hand in it -- they have very long arms. They are trying to see that full information doesn't come in,'' Gujral said in a television interview.

The prime minister said the investigation so far had not established who the ultimate beneficiaries were of the Rs 640 million alleged kickbacks in the 1986 gun deal with the Swedish arms manufacturers, A B Bofors.

''Part of the information has come in. Cases are ready for prosecution. Sanctions have been given. The only thing that we are waiting for is data -- that will pinpoint where the money ultimately went,'' the prime minister was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, Union Railway Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has said that the United Front government has sought legal experts's views on whether the Bofors papers could be made public.

Following former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's widow Sonia's challenge -- asking the government to make these documents public -- the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Left Front and Janata Dal have demanded that the controversial details of the Rs 15 billion deal should be released.

The government, however, seems to be caught in a cleft stick as the Swiss court had stipulated -- before handing over the documents to the Central Bureau of Investigation -- that they should not be made public.

Revealing this, Paswan blamed Sonia for pitchforking a 'forgotten controversy' into an election issue.

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