India, Bhutan search border for missing official
Guwahati, May 2 : Police and rescue teams from India and Bhutan were searching their mountainous border Sunday for a helicopter that vanished while transporting the chief minister of the northeast Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.
The single-engine helicopter was carrying Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu, two other passengers and two pilots when it disappeared 20 minutes after taking off Saturday from the Himalayan Buddhist retreat of Tawang for the state capital, Itanagar.
Bad weather is preventing Indian Air Force helicopters from joining Sunday's search, but ground crews were scouring the area, said Parliamentarian Takam Sanjay, who represents the state.
In eastern Bhutan, "police along with local villagers have set out to locate the helicopter at mountain tops and grazing grounds," while Buddhist monks were praying for divine intervention to help in locating the missing aircraft, said the country's Tashiyangtse district deputy commissioner Sangay Duba.
The Indian Space Research Operation has assigned a satellite to take pictures over the rugged mountain area.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has dispatched junior government minister to supervise the search and rescue operation from Itanagar.
The 56-year-old Khandu is a former army intelligence official elected in 2007 as Arunachal Pradesh's top official.
There have been two helicopter crashes in the area in the past two weeks.
On April 19, a aircraft run by India's state helicopter company Pawan Hans — which was also handling the chief minister's chopper on Saturday — crashed April 19 in the mountains of Tawang, killing 17 people on board.
Three days later, an army helicopter went down in the neighboring state of Sikkim, killing four.
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