Bengaluru, Oct 30 A Bengaluru Police inspector was among five people from Karnataka who were killed when a helicopter crashed at Joshimath in Uttarakhand on Friday, with the government coordinating with Uttarakhand authorities to bring the mortal remains of the victims back to the state at the earliest.
The five male passengers who died in the accident were identified as Prathapa, Arun Salunke, Shankar Gowda, Sudheer K, and H S Natraja. All of them were from Karnataka.
Besides them, the pilot on board the Trans Bharat Aviation Pvt. Ltd.’s helicopter, identified as Capt. Himanshu, also died.
According to a statement issued by the Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority and Social Security and Pensions, the CM’s Office and the Relief Commissioner are coordinating with their counterparts in Uttarakhand to facilitate the transportation of the mortal remains to Karnataka at the earliest.
“The Office of the Resident Commissioner, Karnataka Bhavan, is also in close coordination with the Uttarakhand authorities,” it said.
“As per the information received from the Uttarakhand State Emergency Operations Centre (SEOC), a civil helicopter operated by Trans Bharat Aviation, carrying one pilot and five passengers from Karnataka, crashed at approximately 2 PM today in the hilly terrain of the Hathi Parvat area while travelling from Badrinath to Dehradun,” it said.
Immediately upon receiving the information, the Uttarakhand authorities mobilised teams from the Army, SDRF, ITBP, Police, Health Department and District Disaster Management authorities to undertake search and rescue operations, it said.
The rescue teams have recovered the mortal remains of all six persons, including the pilot, and they were being brought to Joshimath for post-mortem, the statement said.
Taking to ‘X’, Home Minister Priyank Kharge said that the news that Kannadigas have died in the helicopter crash in Uttarakhand is extremely heartbreaking.
“The fact that Arun Salunke, a CCB Inspector who had gone on a trip, has lost his life in this tragedy is an extremely painful matter for the Police Department,” he said.
He said that he prays for peace for the souls of those who perished in this tragedy. He expressed condolences to the grieving families.
According to a senior police officer, Inspector Salunke, a 2007 batch officer, had applied for three days’ leave from October 28 to visit Badrinath.
He was a native of Artal village in Athani Taluk of Belagavi district.
The other two who were on board the helicopter hailed from Tumakuru district — Shankar Gowda, an advocate and H S Nataraj, a poultry businessman.
Speaking to reporters, Narasimha Murthy, father-in-law of Shankar Gowda, said he had not received any official information about the incident and came to know about it only through television.
“Nobody has contacted me so far. I don’t know anything about the trip either. My daughter told me in the morning that he would be coming today,” he said.
Murthy said that his son-in-law, an advocate practising in the High Court, used to go to court every day and recalled that he met him last week.
Taking to social media platform ‘X’, Union Minister H D Kumaraswamy said that he was deeply saddened to learn that five Kannadigas and a pilot lost their lives in the tragic incident in Uttarakhand.
“I pray that the Almighty grants eternal peace to the souls of those who lost their lives in the tragedy,” he said.
(PTI News)
