The mother of a British man jailed for life in India for supplying arms to a revolutionary group said today she was ''hoping and praying'' for his return following reports that a request for his release had been successful.

Peter Bleach, from Howdale, North Yorkshire, was arrested in 1995 with five Russian men and later found guilty of charges involving parachuting crates of assault rifles, anti-tank missiles, rocket launchers and thousands of rounds of ammunition over the eastern Indian village of Purulia.

Indian police said the cache was meant for an Indian revolutionary group.

India's former president pardoned the Russian accomplices in 2000 after Moscow pleaded that there was little evidence against them and that the sentences were too harsh.

The British Government's request for the release of Bleach on similar grounds remained pending.

But today the Indian Express newspaper reported that the British government's request for Bleach's release had been successful. It said that because the release would require clemency from India's ceremonial president the government was still working out the procedure in consultation with the law ministry.

According to the newspaper, India's deputy Prime Minister, Lal Krishna Advani, told Prime Minister Tony Blair of his government's decision to release Bleach during their meeting in London on Monday.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office today confirmed the issue had been raised at meeting between Mr Advani and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw yesterday.

She said the deputy Prime Minister had agreed to look at the case again in discussion with India's Law Minister. She was not aware any decision had been taken by the Indian government.

Speaking from her home near Scarborough, North Yorkshire, Bleach's mother, Oceana Bleach, said she had not heard anything official and was ''keeping her fingers crossed''.

She said: ''I haven't heard anything apart from what I have been told by reporters this morning.

''I am just hoping and praying it is true.''