5 min readMumbaiUpdated: Feb 10, 2026 10:50 PM IST
Nationalist Congress Party (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar on Tuesday alleged the possibility of a conspiracy in the January 28 aircraft crash that killed Maharashtra’s then Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, questioning the competence of the Crime Investigation Department (CID) appointed by the state government to probe the incident.
Rohit Pawar demanded that an independent third party agency such as the National Transportation Safety Board France’s Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety or the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch be asked to investigate the crash.
“After studying the details of the company that provided the flight, the past history of the main pilot and transcripts of the conversation during the last minutes of the flight, many party workers along with me have reached the conclusion that there could be a possibility of the conspiracy here, which killed our leader Ajit Pawar. There should be a thorough probe into the incident and I do not think that the CID is competent enough to probe the incident which requires third party expertise,” Rohit Pawar said.
Earlier in the day, Pawar made an hour-long presentation comprising 54 slides detailing Ajit Pawar’s movements from January 27. The presentation also included screenshots of what he claimed were internal WhatsApp chats of VSR the company that owned the crashed aircraft referring to alleged drinking issues of the pilot.
This is the first time since the crash that a member of the Pawar family has publicly alleged conspiracy in Ajit Pawar’s death.
Rohit Pawar also demanded a complete ban on the use of aircraft operated by the VSR group and questioned the state government’s appointment of Arrow Aircraft Sales and Charters Pvt Ltd which provides aircraft for VVIP travel.
On January 28 hours after the crash veteran leader Sharad Pawar had ruled out any conspiracy. Responding to this Rohit Pawar said “His statement was made based on the information that was available within six hours of the incident. Next day lakhs of people were to come to Baramati and any statement could have created a law and order problem. What he did at that time was right. But I have worked for 13 days collecting information from various sources and have reached the conclusion that the incident smells like conspiracy.”
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He added that leaders from the party had also expressed doubts and that he had discussed the issue with Parth Pawar and Jay Pawar, sons of the late Ajit Pawar. He said he had not shared his presentation with Sharad Pawar but believed that the senior leader “would be having similar feelings”.
Rohit Pawar further claimed that Ajit Pawar’s travel plans were altered at the last minute. “Ajit Dada was originally supposed to travel from Pune to Mumbai by car around 5 or 5.30 pm after a cabinet meeting. A very big leader was supposed to meet him. This leader arrived late and the discussion was prolonged causing a significant delay. Due to this delay the car journey was cancelled and a plane had to be booked at the last minute,” he said.
Among the factors he cited as raising suspicion were changes to Ajit Pawar’s itinerary alteration of the flight schedule and pilot landing despite low visibility insistence on using Runway 11 the aircraft being brought to a lower altitude prematurely the pilot remaining silent during the final minutes discrepancies between the Union Civil Aviation Ministry report and air traffic control transcripts and flight radar data cutting off a minute before the crash.
“These factors are interconnected and require a detailed probe,” Rohit Pawar said.
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He also presented screenshots of WhatsApp messages, which he claimed were from an internal group of the VSR company showing one Captain V K Singh cautioning pilots, including the pilot of Ajit Pawar’s flight against drinking. “The pilot was grounded for three years over his drinking habit. He had to leave his training in the USA mid-way after being found drunk. I don’t want to cast aspersions on anyone but I have lost my leader and my uncle. I have full right to question the circumstances under which he died and demand probe,” he said.
A special audit of VSR Ventures is already under way by a six member team appointed by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The DGCA is also undertaking audits of all non-scheduled aircraft operators in the country in two phases.
