PUNE: NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar on Friday said he will meet AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal and leaders of the INDIA bloc in Delhi urging them to raise in Parliament the issue of the January 28 plane crash that killed then Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and four others.
He said he has sought appointments with Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and TMC chief and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee.
"I am deeply saddened that the MLAs who went with Ajitdada (when the party split in July 2023) are not willing to take any stand. A probe must be conducted under Section 12. The fight will now be taken to Delhi. Tomorrow, I will meet Arvind Kejriwal and other INDI bloc leaders and urge them to raise this issue in Parliament," he said.
He was speaking after meeting CID officials here, where he submitted the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) preliminary report and other documents as part of a statement recorded under Section 180 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).
"During our previous visit, CID officials told us an FIR would be registered after the AAIB report was submitted.
Today, they changed their stand, saying an FIR can only be registered after the final report, not the preliminary one," Pawar told reporters.
He pointed out that the final report in a VSR aircraft crash in 2023 is still awaited, even as the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has indicated it would be issuing the report soon.
"This delay shows there is clear dilly-dallying in registering FIR in the plane crash case," he alleged.
Pawar drew a sharp contrast with the 2019 plane crash near Mumbai, in which BJP leader Kirit Somaiya had taken the initiative to file an FIR.
"In a crash that killed the Deputy Chief Minister of the state, an FIR is not being registered. This shows something is clearly fishy," the MLA claimed.
The NCP (SP) leader also raised serious questions about the treatment meted out to VK Singh, owner of VSR Ventures, the company that operated the ill-fated aircraft, when he was summoned for questioning.
"He was given royal treatment at the CID office. His security personnel carrying AK-47 rifles were allowed in, and he was whisked away from the media on his way out. Why was he shielded from the media?" Pawar asked.
Alleging there was pressure on CID officials, he said no concrete probe was underway, adding it amounted to an attempt to protect VSR Ventures.