Hyderabad, October 01: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is awaiting transcripts of the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) of the crashed Bell-430 chopper from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), has now begun an inquiry into the allegations of massive corruption in the AP Aviation Corporation Limited (APAC).
A series of reports published in Express about the efforts made by the late Group Captain Sunil Kumar Bhatia to expose the alleged corruption in APAC would form the basis of the probe.
The various agencies probing the crash, which took place almost a month ago, are likely to submit their preliminary findings in the next 15 days.
Sources associated with the investigation told Express that CBI SP (Vizag) Nageswara Rao started his probe into the APAC affairs on Wednesday.
‘‘Based on the reports that appeared in Express about Bhatia trying to expose corruption and the alleged harassment he was facing at the hands of certain APAC officials, the SP has been asked to probe the matter. He would be collecting all relevant documents from the APAC and the family members of Bhatia,’’ sources said.
The Crime Investigation Department (CID), which was handling the investigation initially, is already inquiring into the allegations against APAC officials.
Sources said the CBI is also simultaneously probing the aspects of maintenance of the chopper and its air-worthiness.
‘‘The APAC officials have been claiming that the chopper was in a good condition.
But we cannot go merely by their claim. The officials will be grilled and confronted with documents, ’ ’ the sources said.
However, the key element in the entire probe is to know whether Bhatia was in a disturbed state of mind due to the alleged harassment meted out to him.
‘‘This is crucial from the investigation point of view,’’ the sources said.
Meanwhile, the CBI has requested the DGCA to provide the CVR transcripts to it at the earliest.
‘‘The conversation among the pilots, the late chief minister and the two officials on board for 30 minutes (before the crash) was recorded (conversation gets erased every 30 minutes from the time of take off),’’ the sources informed.
–Agencies–