Belthangady: Total silence prevails at the residence of soldier Eknath Shetty as no information is received even after 24 hours after the Russian made IAF aircraft AN-32 went missing over the Bay of Bengal. His wife Jayanthi, a teacher at SDM Kannada medium school, who collapsed when she received the call from defence security force office, was later admitted to the hospital.
The missing officer’s two children, Ashitha, a student of Government College in Ujire and Akshay, a 10th standard student too have remained quiet after hearing the news.
Eknath Shetty’s brief profile:
He is the third child among five to his parents late Krishna Shetty, a soldier of Mangaluru origin and Sunanda. He joined defence forces after his schooling at Canara high school in Mangaluru.
Eknath Shetty (48) joined army as a Subedar in 1985 and moved to Madras regimental centre later. He had served in Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh and Punjab with a brief stint in Sri Lanka during 1986. Though his service in army ended in 2009, he got a call from the air force to join its defence security wing. In this unit, he had served at places like Kannur, Goa and Kanpur before getting posted at Port Blair. He was in his hometown during the first half of July 2016 and left to rejoin duty on July 16.He had informed his family about the flight he was supposed to board despite his slight illness. His family has not received any information from him since Friday, July 22 morning and the only call was about his disappearance from the defence office, That call confirmed his presence in the missing aircraft which sent shock waves among his family and friends.
Mangaluru MP, Nalin Kumar Kateel, BJP district president Sanjeev Matandur, MLA Vasanth Bangera and other local leaders visited Eknath Shetty’s residence to inquire about his wife’s health condition and console the family. From the government side Tahsildar Prasanna Murthy and few other officials visited his residence.
The missing plane is a part of the 33 Squadron located at the Sulur airbase. It is one of the many medium-lift tactical aircraft upgraded with airframe strengthening and newer avionics under the Rs 1,965 crores contracts inked with Ukraine in June 2009. The total technical life of an AN-32 is 20,000 flying hours or 25 years with 15,000 landings.
It may be recalled that the Indian Air Force plane carrying 29 people that went missing on Friday on a flight to Port Blair in the Bay of Bengal. The Russian-made AN-32 was on its way to Port Blair, the capital of Andaman and Nicobar islands, from Chennai when it disappeared from the radar. There were 21 military personnel on board including six crew members. The other people on board were civilians, some family members of soldiers deployed on the islands.
