After 25 long years since the ill-fated aircraft carrying the then Prime Minister Morarji Desai, crash-landed at Tekelagaon, on the outskirts of Jorhat, a resident of the village has sought the help of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to transform Tekelagaon into a model village.

Lalit Barua, in a letter to Vajpayee, stated that he was one of the first persons to come to the aid of Morarji Desai while the airlines personnel arrived much later on the scene. Barua claimed that Desai to Delhi invited him after a fortnight of the accident, where Desai promised to undertake several developmental programmes in the village. “But nothing has happened in the past 25 years,” Barua lamented in the letter to Vajpayee.

He pleaded to the Prime Minister to install the model of an aeroplane atop a pillar at the accident site, as a reminder to the event where five pilots died while Desai and his entourage had a narrow escape. Mr Barua, in his letter, urged the Prime Minister to transform Tekelagaon into a model village where all the basic amenities are available.

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