Who bombed the Hilton?

by Rachel Landers

  Driving Norm forward is the vital evidence that has just arrived at headquarters: a copy of Abhiik Kumar’s passport. It’s like someone had just hauled the Rosetta stone up the stairs and left it in the middle of the floor — ‘There you go lads, mystery solved.’ While whoever filed the copy in the Hilton archive took pains to black out the origins of this wondrous document, it’s pretty obviously from one of the ASIO agents embedded in the sect. It’s a pretty nifty piece of spy work too — it can’t be that easy to filch a sect leader’s passport, take photographs of its many pages, then smuggle it out of sect headquarters and get it to your contact so they can send it to the Hilton task force. All I know for certain from the running sheets is that this operation took place between 8 pm on Thursday 16 February, three days after the bombing, and 8.30 the next morning.5

  It must have been pretty scary. Imagine you’re an ASIO operative embedded in a sect trying to worm your way up to the leader. Now you have to get hold of his passport without being seen, bearing in mind that the Margii headquarters in Newtown where both leader and said passport reside is a densely populated communal living space seething with paranoia. Remember Tim Anderson claimed in the Margii press conference the day after the blast that they believed the sect had already been infiltrated by ASIO. Adding to the tense atmosphere is the fact that the Newtown residence had been searched by Breaking Squad police on the night of 14 February. The Margiis must have been as twitchy as cats on a windy day.

  I suppose the above could be fanciful speculation on my part and the passport could have simply been copied by a diligent Customs officer the day Kumar arrived back in Sydney just prior to the bombing, and then passed on to the Hilton task force. It’s the assertion by the redacted author in the running sheets that it was obtained via an operation that occurred over the course of a Thursday night that makes me think it was obtained through covert means.

  Whatever its origins, there it is on the morning of 17 February — 13 photocopied pages of the passport of the spiritual leader of the Ananda Marga in Australasia. Well, in actual fact, 13 photocopied pages of one of Kumar’s many passports. He had one for each of his many names. This one is for Jason Holman Alexander, not Jon Hoffman or Michael Brandon or any of the others he is known to use.

  Norm gets to see him close up for the first time, staring out of that square photograph. Thick blackframed glasses, bushy Ned Kelly beard, ‘1.80 m in height, brown eyes, brown hair. Born in Hartford on 21.11.49’. This makes him 28 years old.

  The pages of this passport provide Norm Sheather with a fascinating if partial insight to where Kumar has actually been in the last eight months. While the notes accompanying the copied passport make it clear that certain of the entries cannot be deciphered owing to illegibility — for example, ‘Page 7 bears five stamps of which only one is readable as follows: PERMITTED TO LAND SANTACRUZ AIRPORT BOMBAY DATE 22.9.77’ — what it does reveal is illuminating. Where has Kumar been over the last eight months? Well, where hasn’t he been.

  Between the first legible entry of 8 June 1977 when he enters the USA, and the last on 8 February 1978 when he arrives in Kuala Lumpur, a period of exactly eight months, the team can identify stamps that have Abhiik Kumar entering or exiting 25 international airports or ports that include London, Sweden, Nepal, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Bombay, the USA and Felixstowe Port. This has to be put in context with the stamps that are illegible — which add up to a total of 18 unreadable entries that potentially almost double his activities. This would have him entering or exiting an international port on average every six days. This of course is only what this passport shows. It is more than possible that Kumar is using other passports under his other names.

  This is something that the Margiis have always been upfront about. They often asserted that they changed their names and passports with such frequency in order to avoid harassment from various authorities. Given that Kumar aka Jason Holman Alexander changed his name from Jon Hoffman in 1977 but is also known at this point to use the names Mark Randall and Stephen James Manly, and is using a passport in the name of Michael Brandon by early 1978, he could well have used these passports in parallel with the one in the name of Alexander. Further evidence that it is possible he was travelling under a different name/s and passport/s is the large gaps in time and sudden leaps from continent to continent. There are no legible stamps at all for August 1977. He either stays in London for almost 11 weeks between his arrival on 8 July and his arrival in Bombay on 22 September — which seems a long time for our itchy-footed sect leader — or there are travels that can’t be deciphered. Similarly, Kumar leaves Nepal on 24 September for destination unknown. There are then no legible stamps until he suddenly arrives in Sweden two and a half weeks later on 11 October.

  So what? So the man is busy, he likes to travel — what does it prove? What can Norm actually tie to those readable dates and places? Quite a few things, actually. Kumar is in London at the time Margiis Kidd, Waring and Shaw are arrested for the attempted murder of the Indian ambassador. He is in India a few weeks before Sarkar’s appeal is denied. He is in Bangkok eight days before Margiis Spark, Jones and Child are arrested in possession of explosives. He is back in Sydney the day before the Hilton.

  While you can’t prove anything exactly, what you can do is start to paint a picture in broad strokes. You can say, for example, that during those eight months Kumar was hopping around the globe, there is a record of him travelling to nearly every single country — the exceptions being Afghanistan and Canada — where there was a threat, an attack or a Margii arrest for violence against an Indian national. Bad timing? A coincidence?

  Norm begins to drill down and sends two Special Branch detectives assigned to the task force, Helson and Watson, to have a conference with the Indian vice-consul, Mr Alagh, at midday on 17 February. He asks Mr Alagh to forward a confidential message to India requesting information on Indian terrorists, the Ananda Marga, and the type of explosive devices used by same. The message reads as follows:

  Type of devices used by terrorists particularly the Indian sector of the Ananda Marga. It is requested that the reply include type, brand, colour etc, of wiring, explosive, timing device, battery, how detonated, and plan or photograph and modus operandi of terrorists and the usual way that they obtain explosives or any other information which may assist Sydney Police in their inquiries.6

  Next, Norm turns his attention to the three Ananda Marga members arrested in Bangkok. While initially the proximity between the Bangkok arrest of Australians Spark and Jones, along with the American Sarah Child, and the Hilton bombing seems meaningful, it is swiftly established that neither Jones nor Spark has been in Australia for almost four years. It is true they all had tickets to Australia in their possession, however they were unable to get on a flight.7 While Jones and Spark have been away for years, travelling in parts unknown, Norm is able to at least glean some information about who these young people are from their families in Australia.

  What Norm and the team also learn is that the Thai police have credible information placing Abhiik Kumar with Spark, Child and Jones in Bangkok five days before their arrests. The Thais further suggest that Kumar is involved in the purchase of the explosives the trio are caught with.8

  It is the parents of Timothy Jones who provide a potent if heartbreaking etch-a-sketch of the closedoff universe these young men and women inhabit. The report of the interview with Timothy’s parents, conducted the day after their son, Spark and Child are arrested in Bangkok, is incredibly poignant.9 Timothy’s father is ‘a chartered accountant [who with his wife] resides in an upper class area of Kew’. The telex sent to Norm begins, somewhat surprisingly:

  Parents freely admitted that their son was a member of Ananda Marga sect and had been so for a period of approximately five years, having to their belief now reached the level of Acharya. They then stated that they themselves take an active part in Ananda Marga (practising meditation and maintaining contact with David Mathew Meighan and Tim Anderson and att
ending other social functions i.e. christenings etc.) and receive Ananda Marga publications. On the question of their son upon arrest requesting that the appropriate authorities be contacted, parents stated this would be without doubt the Ananda Marga in Australia.

  This portrait of intergenerational membership of Ananda Marga that seems to suggest an integrated and happy environment swiftly darkens when it is revealed that while the parents consider ‘the Ananda Marga sect as a religious and peaceful organisation’, they are very worried about their son’s predicament in Bangkok and that the Australian Government may not be providing him with legal representation. If this is the case they state they are prepared to ‘A. Lend money to Ananda Marga sect to cover legal costs and B. To pay expenses to provide legal representations from Australia.’

  It turns out that Mr and Mrs Jones are willing (understandably) to do anything for their only son, from whom they are almost completely estranged: ‘Jones’ parents further stated they had not seen their son since 1974 … [and added] in the early stages of their son’s involvement [with the sect] they experienced difficulty in maintaining contact with him’. It is only through a series of individuals connected to the sect, no doubt aided by their own active involvement, that they have managed to get information from him from time to time through an intermediary.10

  I think of Mrs Jones attempting to meditate away the strain of knowing her 25-year-old son is banged up on terrorism charges in a Bangkok cell. A son she raised and sent to Trinity Grammar — a boy whom she has not seen for five years and who refuses to visit or speak directly to his family. I think of how she and her husband must have had to ingratiate their way into the sect because it was the only way to gather crumbs of information about what Timothy was doing and whether he was safe … One can say this, that even if the Margiis are innocent of all the crimes they have been accused of, they are clearly capable of inflicting an exquisite kind of pain on those who least deserve it.

  Norm gets a photo of Timothy Thomas Hilton Jones. He looks like Jesus in a 1950s movie epic. Shoulder-length light brown hair, beard, big soulful eyes, clothed in some kind of robe-like apparel. He looks sweet. He, along with Child and Spark, is being detained in Bangkok for possessing 1300 grams of C4 explosives, detonators and a timing device. They are arrested based on information supplied by an undercover police officer who, according to a report sent from Thailand, ‘stated he’d been told they [Jones, Child and Spark] planned to detonate an embassy in Bangkok’. The exact embassy was not identified but the trio had maps with the chanceries of the USA and Australia circled.11

  The actions of the Bangkok Three are so close in time to the Hilton blast one can understand the task force’s determination to seek connections between these Margiis and the Australian arm of the sect. Even the vocal claims made by Jones, Child and Spark that they have been framed by the Thai police mirror the frequent claims made by Margii spokespeople throughout 1977 that the sect was being set up.

  Timothy Jones tells the Australian media that the explosive material had been planted on them to discredit the sect: ‘Just outside the hotel the man approached us and said something in Thai … I did not understand him. A moment later, police pounced on us and seized the over-sized shoulder bags we were carrying. Then they took us to our room at the hotel … The police pulled stuff from our bags, and from drawers in the room. We had never seen it before. It was a plant, obviously.’12

  In Manila, Shepherd and Dyer make almost identical claims of a frame-up, as do two of the three charged in London.

  To Norm these implacable young people have an unnerving steeliness and a frictionless surface that appears impenetrable. Despite the crimes they are accused of, they seem unfazed. They argue in unison, regardless of the vast distances between them, that their respective arrests are simply evidence of the conspiracy against their leader and their religion. A conspiracy that has implicated the Margiis in violence since mid-1977 and has been masterminded by the Indian CBI, the KGB, ASIO, the CIA, and the police forces of England, Thailand and the Philippines. Despite the difficulty of imagining how such a group would work in unison, they do not falter. They stand as one.

  It’s a bit like the way cops stick together in the ‘blue wall of silence’ when criticised by outsiders. Does Norm get a whiff of this? Does he sense any similarities between the fierce loyalties of the Margiis and those within his own brotherhood? Maybe, maybe not. What is clear is that he’s looking not just for connections between the Margiis named in the recent clusters of violence, but also for a way in. A chink, a foothold — something to connect them to Australia.

  From Scotland Yard to Newtown

  One of the task force detectives has alerted Norm to an article published in an Indian newspaper that states that Anthony Niall Kidd, one of the London Margiis responsible for stabbing the Indian High Commission official Mr Ahluwalia on 31 October 1977 and standing trial for bombing charges, had not only confessed to the crime but had also named Ananda Marga associates, thought to be American, Filipino and Australian and ‘related his complete knowledge of the Ananda Marga sect’.1 Norm immediately sends a telex to Scotland Yard outlining the details of the Hilton bombing and asking for everything they have from Kidd including ‘details of the movements, including countries visited, by Kidd and his associates since June 1977. Also whether or not Kidd or his associates have visited Australia, and if so, the particulars of same.’ He ends his telex with a final request:

  Information has been received by our office of the following persons having visited your country since June of last year and there is a possibility of an association with Kidd and his associates.

  1. Jason Holman Alexander, previously known as Jon Hoffman, born 21.11.49, who had changed his name and became an Australian citizen on the 30th March 1977. Passport number Z2669601.

  2. Timothy Edward Anderson, born 30.4.53, an Australian citizen.

  3. Gary James Coyle, born 16.9.52, an Australian Citizen.

  All known leaders for Australasia sect of Ananda Marga. Please ascertain the movements of these three persons in your country since June 1977, and any background information you may have on them: TELEX SCOTLAND YARD UK. Signed N. Sheather. Inspector Third Class.2

  As well as stepping up the focus on the international machinations of the sect, Norm ensures that the team keeps its eye on the domestic surveillance of the Ananda Marga members. A list of 75 male members is sent to the Navy’s military intelligence to discover whether any of them have received training in explosives.3

  Norm also has the team pore over all the correspondence received from the Universal Proutist Revolutionary Federation (UPRF, in whose name the violence against Indian nationals is claimed) in Australia in 1977, hunting for a possible lead. Reading this material in the aftermath of the Hilton bombing it’s hard not to be swayed by the astonishingly accurate warnings they contain. This letter sent on 27 September 1977 addressed to Prime Minister Morarji Desai is tantalising:

  The Universal Proutist Revolutionary Federation notes your callous refusal to release Shrii PR Sarkar, and points out that your resistance is, as warned, a death sentence to your overseas officials and lackeys …

  Let any government of the world spend three hundred million dollars on security, it will make no difference to us because we are ready to give our lives to this cause …

  Don’t make the mistake of thinking security will protect your lackeys one iota — they are extremely vulnerable.

  There will be no more warnings, and kidnapping will not be attempted this time ...

  As we are absolutely resolved and completely determined, the decision is only in your hands as to how much bloodshed there must be … two deaths or two hundred … the decision is yours and the blood is on your hands, Mr Desai. UPRF AUSTRALIA.

  As suggestive as this letter and others are — think of the money spent on CHOGRM, the acts of self-immolation, the cessation of attacks between November 1977 and February 1978, the reference to Duff’s attempted kidnapping of Col
onel Singh and his wife and the apparent forewarning of the second wave of international attacks in February — they also mock and confuse. Copies of the letter above are sent to Air India in Sydney, Perth and Melbourne, and to the Indian High Commission and to the Canberra Times. Besides being able to ascertain they were sent at 11.30 am or 1.30 pm from Melbourne, it is impossible to trace the sender. Each time these letters arrive it must be remembered that the Ananda Marga in Australia denied their involvement and condemned their contents. Some letters, as mentioned earlier, were forwarded to the police by the Ananda Marga itself. In polite accompanying notes, often from Tim Anderson, it would be explained that the letter had arrived at their headquarters and they were alerting the authorities — reiterating that they did not support violence and had no knowledge of this UPRF group.

  The task force assigns a full-time Observation Squad to keep watch outside the Ananda Marga headquarters in Newtown — still a cheap and semi-seedy inner-city suburb about four kilometres from the Hilton Hotel — throughout the end of February and early March. Members are watched coming and going as they undertake doorknock appeals for disaster relief throughout Sydney. There are numerous documents noting movements of members as well as attempts to interview associates of members.

  In the reams of surveillance notes, some familiar names appear — those of Special Branch officers Watson, Helson, Henderson and Detective Constable Krawczyk. All of these police officers had been watching the Australian members of the sect long before the Hilton bombing. All were part of the stepped-up security measures enacted in anticipation of CHOGRM. These officers perhaps more than any others want to make an arrest — and perhaps hope to find evidence connecting Australian members of the sect to the bombing. Are they maddened by the lure of the circumstantial evidence? Are they ashamed of their failure? Norm Sheather is a fresh set of eyes; he started the day after the bombing and is untainted by anything that went before. These officers are burdened by having been charged to prevent the very thing that happened; rightly or wrongly, the effects of this burden will compel them towards a decision that will have catastrophic consequences for the case.