26 May,2011 08:34 AM IST | | Abhishek Anand
The crime branch of Delhi police have arrested a trainee co-pilot with Air India for allegedly using forged marksheets to procure commercial flying licence. "The arrested pilot has been identified as 29-year-old Sourabh Prakash Lokhande. He was apprehended on May 24,", said Ashok Chand, DCP (crime).
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation had earlier forwarded his name to the Delhi police's crime branch for having submitted forged marksheets for obtaining the Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL).
With this arrest, the Delhi police have arrested a total of 12 pilots, three DGCA officials, three middleman and two forgers in the fake pilot scam. The Jaipur police also had arrested two fake pilots earlier.
Lokhande told police that he had appeared in three examinations conducted by the DGCA but failed to get through."In 2008, he got CPL from Philippines, but failed to convert it to CPL (India) as he could not pass in the exams. Later, he was approached by Eknath Patil, a tout , who told him that if he paid him Rs3 lakh, he could arrange a result sheet showing that he had passed in all papers," said a police officer.
After Lokhande paid him the money, he got the forged result sheet which he submitted along to DGCA on June 27, 2008 along with other documents and based on them a CPL was issued to him.
