Hopes recede, govt says no conclusion on Khandu's fate | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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Hopes recede, govt says no conclusion on Khandu's fate

PTI | By, Itanagar/new Delhi
May 03, 2011 07:52 PM IST

Hopes of Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Dorjee Khandu being alive were receding fast on Tuesday, three days after his helicopter went missing and suspectedly crashed, but the government said the search was continuing.

Hopes of Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Dorjee Khandu being alive were receding fast on Tuesday, three days after his helicopter went missing and suspectedly crashed, but the government said the search was continuing.

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"We have not come to any conclusion. Unless and until the search group gives any kind of report, we will not come to any conclusion. We cannot come to any conclusion," minister of state in the PMO V Narayanasamy told reporters in Itanagar when asked about the fate of Khandu.

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Khandu's helicopter lost contact at around 10.20am on Saturday while flying over Sela Pass in Arunachal Pradesh.

Narayanasamy, who is camping in Itanagar to oversee search operations, said specially-trained personnel of the Army, Border Roads Organisation and ITBP are trying to reach the identified location which is a difficult and inaccessible terrain.

Emphasising that the central government was according top priority to the search operation, he said all means are being employed to find the chief minister and others.

Some metallic objects have been sighted at a place in Bhutan, several kilometers from Sela Pass where the helicopter lost contact, and search parties comprising 3,000 personnel from the Army, Border Roads Organisation, ITBP, SSB and Arunachal Pradesh Police were trying to reach there.

"According to inputs from the Arunachal government, local people have sighted something like an aircraft inside Bhutan. It's about five km inside Bhutan from the border. Having got the clearance from Bhutanese authorities, one of our teams started on foot this morning," ITBP IG MS Bhurji told PTI.

Nearly 300 ITBP personnel on Tuesday fanned out on foot heading towards a place five km inside Bhutan and for Nagajiji near the windy Sela Pass to track the missing helicopter.

The aerial search was called off for the day because of bad weather.

A small team of the army is on the stand-by to be inducted in the area by helicopter wherever the wreckage is spotted.

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