Mystery surrounds the whereabouts of a helicopter carrying Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu, with official claims that it had been traced to Bhutan denied and no news about the chopper till late evening on Saturday.
Indian government has alerted the Department of Space and ISRO for help in locating the whereabouts of the missing helicopter.
Union Home Secretary G. K. Pillai said that Indian satellites have made two passes over the probable area from where the Pawan Hans helicopter went missing 20 minutes after takeoff from Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh but has not picked up any signals.
He said Pawan Hans helicopter carries a location transponder that can communicate at 406 MHz frequency in the event of any emergency or it could also be manually operated.
Pillai said depending upon the weather tomorrow morning IAF helicopters from Dibrugarh and Jorhat will carry out aerial search.
There was some confusion about reports that the helicopter had been located but actually it still remains untraced till tonight.
"We have also heard through the media about the helicopter landing in Bhutan, but we don't have any reports of an Indian helicopter landing in our territory. But we have deployed troops and local villagers to see if any helicopter has landed here," S. Duba, deputy commissioner of Trashiyangtse district in Bhutan adjoining Tawang, said by phone.
India's Ambassador to Bhutan Pavan Verma also said Bhutan has not reported any landing of an Indian helicopter in its territory.
"There is no confirmation of a landing of Indian chopper in Bhutanese territory," he said.
"The official position is there is no confirmation or news about the helicopter. There has been no direct contact with any of the five people on board and we really don't know any details as of now," Arunachal MP Takam Sanjay said.
"The fact of the matter is we don't know yet where the helicopter is," Sanjay said.
30/04/11 Itanagar/Deccan Chronicle
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