One more pilot arrested for forging marksheets

One more pilot has been arrested in New Delhi for allegedly using forged marksheets to procure commercial flying licences and acting as a middleman, taking the total number of people arrested in such cases to 23.

The arrested person has been identified as Dipak Daulat Asatkar, 25, who was absconding for the past six months, Ashok Chand, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime), said.

He was apprehended from Mumbai yesterday. He allegedly obtained commercial flying licence by using forged marksheets and also later acted as a middleman between agents and pilots who wanted to acquire a licence using the same method. With this, Delhi Police has arrested 21 persons in the case -- 13 pilots, three DGCA officials and five middlemen.

Jaipur Police has arrested two fake pilots since March seven after the fake pilot scam was unearthed by the DGCA.

The previous arrest by Delhi Police was made on Aug 10 when they apprehended a pilot Gaurav Jain.

Four pilots are still absconding Asatkar came in contact with Capt Pradeep Tyagi, who was arrested earlier through one of his friends. Tyagi through his contacts in DGCA allegedly helped him in getting his Indian CPL immediately in February 2009.

Till date, the Crime Branch has smashed four modules.

In the first module relating to the grant of ALTP licence, the kingpin was Tyagi. Busting of the module led to the arrest of Parminder Kaur Gulati, Jitender Krishan Varma, Meenakshi Singhal, Swarn Singh Talwar -- all pilots -- and forgers Lalit Jain and Pankaj Jain.

DGCA official Pradeep Kumar and pilots Syed Ali Habeeb and Bhupinder Singh are absconding.

The second module related to the grant of Commercial Pilot Licence. The kingpin of this module was Eknath Patil. Besides Patil, pilots Abhishek Kaushik, Hiren Nagar, Saurabh P Lokhande and Jigesh Bhai Patel and DGCA officials Mohd Kasim Ansari and Mahan Jyoti Bhattacharya were arrested.

The third module also related to the grant of CPL. The kingpin of the module was Ravish Bhadana, who has been identified but is yet to be arrested.

Smashing module, police arrested pilots Saif Misbah, Param Prakash and Anirban Sannigrahi. The fourth module also related to the grant of CPL and the kingpin was Manoj Dhaka, also a CPL Holder, who has been identified but still absconding.

Two pilots Rohit Kapoor and Gaurav Jain have been arrested. Four pilots Bhupinder Singh, Syed Habib Ali, Ravish Bhadana and Manoj Dhaka are absconding and yet to be arrested.