By IANS,
New Delhi : Two more officials of aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) were arrested here for helping pilots procure commercial pilot licences through forged documents, police said Wednesday.
Mohammed Qasim Ansari, 42, and Mahan Jyoti Bhattacharya, 37, were arrested Tuesday night as part of the continuing probe into the fake pilot licence scandal.
“They were arrested for helping pilots Hiren Nagar and Abhishek Kaushik, who were held recently, procure commercial pilot licences,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police Ashok Chand.
Police said that they took money from Nagar and Kaushik, routed through a tout Eknath Patil, who was arrested Monday.
“During interrogation, we found that Patil had given Rs.2.25 lakh each for — Kaushik and Nagar — to Ansari for ensuring that there was no hitch in the movement of their files,” said Chand.
Ansari, then, gave Rs.2.6 lakh to Bhattacharya, the dealing hand in commercial pilot licences section.
“Both of them knew that the result cards submitted by Kaushik and Nagar were forged,” said Chand.
Ansari is currently posted in the finance section of the DGCA but between May, 2006 and April, 2008, he was posted in the commercial pilot licences section. Bhattacharya, presently posted in the cash and general section, was working in the commercial pilot licences section from June 2008 to December 2009.
While Ansari, a ITI diploma holder from Bihar, joined DGCA in 1994 as a draftsman, Bhattacharya completed his class 12 from Assam and joined DGCA in 1997 as a lower division clerk.
The Delhi Police arrested Abhishek Kaushik from Gurgaon in Haryana April 1. Hiren Nagar was arested from Ahmedabad in Gujarat April 4 (Monday).
So far, Delhi Police have arrested 11 people in the fake pilot scam.
The three pilots and a flying instructor against whom a lookout notice was issued March 28 are still absconding.
They are pilots Swaran Singh Talwar of MDLR airlines, Syed Habib Ali and Bhupinder Singh, who have not joined any airline, and flying instructor D. Asatkar.
All airports and ports have been put on alert to prevent them from fleeing the country.
Pradeep Kumar, 48, an assistant director with the DGCA, Pradeep Tyagi, 35, a pilot who helped others procure fake mark sheets, and his two associates Pankaj Jain, 23, and Lalit Jain, 34, were arrested between March 22-25 from Delhi and Chennai.
During interrogation, Pradeep Kumar told police that he had processed files for around 60 licences in the past couple of years.
Tyagi arranged for a forged result card through Pankaj and Lalit in east Delhi after paying them Rs.1 lakh. He also paid about Rs.25,000 to Pradeep Kumar for ensuring that there was no hitch in processing the papers, police said.
Tyagi helped pilots Parminder Kaur Gulati, Meenakshi Sehgal, J.K. Verma, Swaran Singh Talwar, Syed Habib Ali and Bhupender Singh in obtaining licences on the basis of forged documents.
DGCA sources told IANS that a scrutiny of the licences of 3,000-4,000 pilots was on and more arrests were likely.