Chief Minister Raman Singh on Tuesday expressed his deep shock at the death of five members of a marriage party on Udaipur-Surajpur road in Surguja district in a road mishap in the wee hours of Monday.
The Chief Minister also expressed gratitude to the officials of the Indian Air Force (IAF) for their prompt rescue and relief operations.
Singh said that the Air Force personnel led by their Air Commodore Ajay Shukla had displayed exemplary sense of duty and provided instant relief and rescue operations to the injured.
It may be mentioned here that members of a marriage party were travelling in a pick-up van which collided with a tractor in which five members had lost their lives in the early hours of Monday.
On the directives of Chief Minister Raman Singh the senior officials got in touch with Raipur-based Indian Air Force Task Force Commander (Anti-Naxal Operations), MP-Chhattisgarh) Ajay Shukla. He immediately along with his team of personnel took an IAF helicopter at 3:48 am on Monday and flew to the accident site.
On the night of February 5, 2017, a head-on collision between a pickup van and a tractor near Ambikapur in the insurgency infested Surguja district in Chhattisgarh had left five passengers dead and others critically injured, a Defence Ministry press release informed.
Around midnight, IGP Surguja approached Task Force Commander of IAF’s Anti-Naxal Task Force (ANTF) based at Raipur, to airlift the casualties which was approved by HQ, Central Air Command, it informed.
In the meantime, the pilots and ground staff of the Task Force had swung into action to get the Raipur civil airfield opened. One Mi-17V5 helicopter was readied, while another helicopter was kept on standby.
Flying under the cover of darkness using the Night Vision Goggles (NVG) the pilots landed at Ambikapur. In view of the Naxal threat, the State police provided the necessary sanitisation and security cover around the landing area. Two critically injured passengers, one a child of about 13 years, and a lady along with a team of local doctor were taken on board and evacuated to Raipur before sunrise on February 6, where they were promptly put into ambulances for civil hospital.
In early May last year, the IAF had also sent its two Mi-17 choppers on a request made by the Chhattisgarh government to airlift victims of a major bus accident which occurred 200 km north of Raipur in Balrampur district , a Defence Ministry press release had informed.
The mishap had left 12 persons dead and 35 injured when a bus carrying them fell off a bridge on Balrampur Ambikapur National Highway last year.
Previously, the Mi-17s airlifted mishap victims from the accident spots in Antagarh region of Kanker district on April 15 and Sukma district on April 18 last year for bringing them to Raipur for advanced medical treatment.
The request for casualty evacuation was received and IAF responded promptly wherein two Mi-17 helicopters were launched within an hour to evacuate critically injured passengers from the accident site in Balrampur district, the press release informed.
The Advanced landing Ground at Ambikapur was used for this purpose. Thirteen critically injured passengers were evacuated to Raipur, it informed.