Sixty years before former Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani lost his life in the Air India crash on Thursday, a sitting Gujarat CM was lost mid-air, not to malfunction, but to a Pakistani strike. During the India-Pakistan War of 1965, a Pakistani fighter shot down Balwantrai Mehta’s Beechcraft aircraft, perceiving it as to be a surveillance aircraft.
It was the height of the 1965 India-Pakistan war. And 25-year-old Pakistani Flying Officer Qais Hussain, flying a Sabre jet, was patrolling the tense skies over Bhuj and eastern Sindh. On spotting a civilian aircraft, Hussain sought permission and, once granted, fired at the Beechcraft. Feeling triumphant that he had foiled an enemy surveillance operation, Hussain returned to his base in Karachi.
Hours later, when All India Radio’s 7 pm bulletin announced that a plane carrying Gujarat’s then Chief Minister Balwantrai Mehta and seven civilians had been shot down by Pakistan, Hussain’s pride gave way to shock, disbelief, and a lifelong burden.
Gujarat CM Balwantrai Mehta, pilot Jahangir Engineer, and a journalist were among the eight people killed after their Beechcraft aircraft was shot down by the Pakistani fighter.
Almost 60 years after Balwantrai Mehta, known as the father of Panchayati Raj, lost his life in an air tragedy, Vijay Rupani, who had served as the Gujarat CM between 2016 and 2021, died in an air crash in Ahmedabad. The Air India flight to London, carrying Rupani, crashed just minutes after taking off from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport with 242 people on board. All but one perished as the aircraft stalled mid-air and burst into flames upon hitting the ground.
Here’s a moment to revisit the 1965 tragedy that claimed Balwantrai Mehta’s life, a rare and haunting instance when political leadership was quite literally lost mid-air.
GUJARAT CM’S FLIGHT INTO THE FOG OF 1965 WAR
The 1965 India-Pakistan war, which began in August, had reached a critical point by September.
When the UN Security Council on September 22 passed a resolution calling for an unconditional ceasefire, India accepted it immediately. Pakistan, however, delayed its response, finally agreeing to it a day later, on September 23.
Even as international pressure mounted to restore peace, the skies over the subcontinent remained hostile.
That same afternoon, Gujarat CM Balwantrai Mehta was on his way to Mithapur, near the Gulf of Kutch, accompanied by his wife Sarojben, three aides, and two journalists.
The eight-seater Beechcraft aircraft was piloted by Jahangir Engineer, the state government’s chief pilot and a veteran of the Indian Air Force and the Royal Air Force. The group took off from Ahmedabad not knowing that they were flying into danger.
