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A miraculous escape for Raje

Safe: Vasundhara Raje

JAIPUR: Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and her immediate family had a miraculous escape on Saturday when the Augusta helicopter flying them to the temple town of Onkareshwar in Madhya Pradesh had an emergency landing in a field in Khandwa district.

Ms. Raje, her son Dushyant Singh, who is the Member of Parliament from Jhalawar, daughter-in-law Niharika and two grandchildren are safe. Sources in the Chief Minister’s Office here said the incident took place around 4-30 p.m. after the rotor of the helicopter developed a snag. The helicopter landed in a field near Dhanbard Kala Patthar. Sources termed the act as “precautionary landing”. All the passengers were reported “absolutely” safe.

Ms. Raje and her family had earlier taken off from Ujjain. After the emergency landing, the family returned by road to Ujjain. They are likely to reach Jaipur by Monday.

“We are safe by the grace of Kaleshwarnath and due to the good wishes of the people,” Ms. Raje was quoted as saying by one of her aides who had accompanied her in the chopper.

Rajasthan Governor Shailendra Kumar spoke to Ms. Raje on phone to ask about her well-being. The State administration and the Council of Ministers here got into a tizzy after hearing about the incident.

Ms. Raje had faced a similar situation in May last year when the State aircraft carrying her from Delhi to Jaipur after her return from a US visit developed technical problems. At that time she stayed back in Delhi for a week to get the things in order.

This time round the authorities here said the helicopter was “scratch-free” and engineers of the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation had already examined it. They are scheduled to carry out the final examination on Sunday.

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