Mumbai, June 13 (IANS) Describing the Ahmedabad air crash as ‘alarming’, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut on Friday called for fixing responsibility for the tragedy in which 241 people aboard the London-bound Air India plane were killed.

“Is anyone responsible for it or not? Will the matter be closed after being labelled as an accident?” asked Raut during a media interaction.

The government cannot run away from its responsibility by calling it an accident. “The government is there to prevent accidents and save lives,” he said, intensifying the blame game over the tragedy.

He said the government cannot wash its hands of just by calling it an accident. “The government must bear the responsibility. Who undertook the privatisation of the airline? The government had accepted its inability to run the airline, so who is responsible?” he said.

“Someone has to be held responsible for the accident. After all, a plane crashed within 30 seconds after take-off before our eyes, killing people,” he said.

“Did the two engines fail, or did something else happen inside the plane. The reality needs to come out,” he said.

The Shiv Sena leader also targeted the BJP for questioning the Boeing Dreamliner’s deal under the UPA government and raising suspicions about the deal.

He said those responsible for the tragedy should have resigned on moral grounds. “Whenever there is a rail accident, we demand the resignation of the railway minister. We demanded the resignation of the Home Minister after the Pahalgam incident. But they don’t come forward and own up to their failure,” he said.

Raut’s attack on the government comes at a time when some Opposition leaders have started demanding an investigation into the incident by a sitting or retired Supreme Court judge.

Amid the political war of words over the air crash, Congress leader Udit Raj launched a scathing attack on the aviation safety system in India, claiming that a Director at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) holds a fake degree and that oversight failure led to the tragedy.

Speaking to IANS, Udit Raj said, “The DGCA director’s degree is fake. Such incidents are bound to happen when people with fake degrees are clearing safety standards. Sikkim University has stated that his degree is forged. A PIL has also been filed in the High Court. When such people sit in key positions in civil aviation, accidents are inevitable.”

The ill-fated Air India Dreamliner had taken off from Ahmedabad on Thursday afternoon on June 12 en route to Gatwick, London, but crashed moments later into a residential area, making it one of the worst aviation disasters in recent memory.

In addition to the death of 241 people on board the plane, many people died in the area where it fell. The government has launched a probe into the tragic incident.

–IANS

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