BSF pilot impersonates senior to fly Home Minister Amit Shah's aircraft

Amit Shah. Pic/Twitter IANS

On Tuesday, the Border Security Force (BSF) and Delhi Police began an investigation against a now-former BSF pilot who allegedly faked emails of his senior in a bid to fly the aircraft of Union Home Minister Amit Shah. An official complaint has been launched against the retired Wing Commander J.S. Sangwan at the police station at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi.

According to sources, retired wing commander Sangwan is a decorated officer who also participated in the Kargil war. Earlier, he was a pilot with the BSF. According to the complaint, engineering giant L&T received several emails from the Air Wing of BSF two months ago recommending then Wing Commander Sangwan to fly the aircraft of Amit Shah. The emails recommended Sangwan saying he had nearly 4,000 hours of flying experience.

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As per industry standards, a minimum 1,000 hours of flying experience is required to fly a Home Minister in an aircraft. The L&T provides aircraft to the BSF Air Wing for VIP movement since the latter does not have any aircraft of its own. However, before Sangwan was allowed to fly Home Minister Amit Shah from Chennai to Delhi, his attempt to impersonate a senior officer came to light.

As per the preliminary investigation, Sangwan did not have the necessary qualifications to be a pilot to fly VIPs. Also, he impersonated the email of a senior colleague and also provided his own mobile number in the email for purposes of cross-verification.

The source said that it wasn't clear as to why the senior officer like Sangwan had expressed interest to fly Amit Shah's aircraft. The officer said that a thorough investigation was on and Sangwan's antecedents were being cross-verified.

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With inputs from IANS

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