Hours after claiming that the missing Pawan Hans Helicopter carrying Arunachal chief minister Dorjee Khandu had landed safely, the Arunachal Pradesh government retracted and said the chief minister and the helicopter were traceless since taking off from Tawang on Saturday.
The Arunachal government clarified that it had not been able to establish any contact with the chief minister or anybody on board so far. Earlier, the Arunachal Pradesh chief secretary had said, “The copter landed safely at a remote village in eastern Bhutan. Everybody on board is safe.” The CM’s spokesperson, Jambe Shiring, referring to a telephone call from Bhutan, too had said, “The Arunachal chief minister’s copter has landed safely and he is going to board a flight back to Itanagar.”
Meanwhile, sources in the Indian Air Force said they had launched a search operation despite inclement weather on the basis of inputs received from Arunachal MLAs who claimed that the helicopter has been traced to some remote village in eastern Bhutan. “We were told that some villagers who called up Arunachal MLAs claiming to have seen a helicopter landing in an eastern Bhutan village,” sources in the IAF at Tezpur, Assam, clarified.
According to air traffic control, the last communication with the helicopter was when it was over Sela Pass 20 minutes after taking off from Tawang. All communication was lost after that. It had received a signal from a BSNL tower at Sela, sources said. Earlier, the Arunachal governor had also confirmed the report of a safe landing but, when contacted, his office said Saturday evening that there was no official confirmation on the status of the missing helicopter.
The Army and the IAF have been alerted and helicopters deployed for search and rescue operations in the Sela Pass area. Arunachal MP Sanjay Takam said the state government has decided to send a search party all over the area via the land route. “We really don’t know the details. We have been trying to work out strategy with senior state government officials to trace the copter which we believe had landed safely,” he said.
Khandu, 56, who had served in the intelligence wing of the Indian Army, was sworn in on April 9, 2007 as the state’s fifth CM, replacing Gegong Apang. The other passengers on board were Lamu, a woman relative of the CM, his security officer Choddak, Capt. Babbar and Capt. Manik.
Mr Khandu had taken off from Tawang in the chartered Pawan Hans helicopter at 9.56 am and was to land at Itanagar at 11.30 am. Tawang is about 200 km from Itanagar. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was briefed by national security adviser Shivshankar Menon about the search operations currently underway. The PM also spoke to Arunachal governor J.J. Singh and enquired about the missing helicopter. Search operations are being conducted on both sides of the India-Bhutan border.