The mobile phone of a man who captured a video of the Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopter that crashed in the Nilgiris district, Tamil Nadu on Wednesday, had been collected and sent for forensic analysis by Coimbatore police. The helicopter crash had killed 13 out of 14 people on board, including the nation’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat, and his wife Madhulika Rawat.
According to the police, the phone was taken as part of their investigation into the incident. Joe, a wedding photographer from Coimbatore, had gone to Katteri in the Nilgiris district with a group of friends on December 8 and ‘out of curiosity’ took the video of the ill-fated chopper, which was believed to be taken seconds before the accident. The police are also looking into why Joe and his companions went to the dense woodland zone, which is a restricted area owing to the frequent movement of wild animals.
The IAF Mi-17V5 is seen departing into a fog in the clip. After the video went popular on social media, the police department issued a statement imploring people to ‘avoid uninformed speculation to respect the dignity of the deceased’.
The IAF has established a tri-service Court of Inquiry (CoI) to investigate the disaster, which occurred while the military chief was on his way to the Defence Services Staff College (DSSC) in Wellington, where he was scheduled to give a lecture.
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Brigadier LS Lidder, Lieutenant Colonel Harjinder Singh, Wing Commander Prithvi Singh Chauhan (pilot), Squadron Leader Kuldeep Singh (co-pilot), Junior Warrant Officer (JWO) Rana Pratap Das, JWO Arakkal Pradeep, Lance Naik Vivek Kumar, Lance Naik B Sai Teja, Havildar Satpal Rai, Naik Gursewak Singh, and Naik Jitendra Kumar were among those who were killed in the crash.
Group Captain Varun Singh, the lone survivor, is being treated at a military hospital in Bengaluru. The officer’s condition is said to be critical.
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