PUNE: A Bangkok-bound chartered aircraft with former state health minister and Shiv Sena politician Tanaji Sawant‘s son Rushiraj (29) returned to Pune late on Monday night after the city police contacted the pilot and said he had been reported ‘missing’ and a case of abduction had been registered.
The private jet was midair somewhere near Andaman and Nicobar Islands when it was told to turn around.
Rushiraj — who is the younger of Sawant’s two sons who look after the family’s JSPM Group of Institutes with campuses in Pune and other places — was tracked on board the private jet an hour or so after Sawant met Joint Commissioner of Police Ranjan Kumar Sharma and told him that his son had been “abducted by two men” earlier in the afternoon from JSPM’s Narhe campus.
The jet had taken off from Pune just after 4 pm, the police discovered as they pieced together the sequence of events as narrated by Sawant.
At a press conference, Sharma told reporters, “We registered a case of abduction after receiving the complaint and the same is now being investigated by crime branch officials. Our initial information was that Rushiraj and two others were dropped off at Lohegaon airport in a car in which they had left the Narhe campus. We then got the local police and the crime branch officials to check passenger information on flights and came to know that the three boarded a private jet to a foreign country. With the help of Air Traffic Control officials, we confirmed the direction of the flight, contacted the pilot, and started the process to bring the private jet back to Pune.”
Sharma later told TOI: “The private jet was heading towards Bangkok in Thailand. We called the pilot and the aircraft returned to Pune airport at 9pm.”
Sawant, who addressed reporters at the same press conference, said, “The two men accompanying Rushiraj are not unknown men. I know that they are his friends. As of now, I do not know how and why he left the campus without informing me or any other family member.”
The former minister said he then started calling everyone, including senior police officers, as it was an emergency. “Later, I learned that the three left Pune airport in a private aircraft. Initially, we did not know where the flight was headed. A clear picture as to whether it is a case of missing person or abduction will emerge after I get to speak to Rushiraj.”
Late in the evening, a senior police officer said they are yet to speak to Rushiraj and the two others. Meanwhile, police are investigating who booked the aircraft and bore the expenses.
TOI made repeated calls and sent a message to Sawant after Rushiraj landed in Pune. He had not responded till the time of going to press.
Who is Tanaji Sawant?
Educationist by profession and former health minister Tanaji Sawant is known to be a close associate of Shiv Sena chief and deputy CM Eknath Shinde. In fact, Sawant was among the first Sena MLAs to side with Shinde when he had rebelled against Uddhav Thackeray.
Starting his political career in 2016, Sawant became MLC in the undivided Shiv Sena under Thackeray’s leadership. Later as an MLA, Sawant represented Dharashiv’s Bhum Paranda constituency. The former cabinet minister is known for his foot-in-mouth statements. While he was the health minister in the first Mahayuti-led govt, he had made controversial remarks against Ajit Pawar’s NCP, saying he would feel like vomiting after sitting next to NCP members in the cabinet.
In the second term of Mahayuti, Sawant travelled to Nagpur for the oath-taking ceremony with an expectation of getting a cabinet berth again in Devendra Fadnavis’s cabinet. However, after finding out that his name was not on the list of ministers, he left Nagpur without attending the event.
