By Ankit Kumar, Abhishek Bhalla : Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Sunday said that he did not sleep the entire night as he monitored the developments surrounding the arrest of Khalistani separatist Amritpal Singh. His concern extended beyond Amritpal’s successful arrest and also included the potential for a law-and-order situation following the news of the arrest.

As news broke early Sunday morning that the separatist leader had surrendered after being on the run for 35 days, the top priority became his safe and immediate transfer to a distant jail in Assam’s Dibrugarh.

ALSO READ | IAF planes, Navy ship on standby to evacuate Indians stranded in Sudan: Govt

Law enforcement agencies required an immediate solution that would guarantee a safe and quick passage spanning over twenty-five hundred kilometers, with zero loopholes. The Indian Air Force’s (IAF) tactical transport aircraft, the Antonov or An-32 aircraft, came to the rescue.

Often referred to as the backbone of the IAF’s transport fleet, the upgraded versions, including the one called in on Sunday morning to fly Amritpal Singh, are identified as An-32 RE.

According to available open-source flight data, the IAF jet with tail number AK2698 was seen approaching Bathinda as early as 7.22 am. Very soon, the turboprop twin-engine jet was seen flying back from Bathinda towards the east at ten thousand feet, amid inconsistent signal broadcast on publicly available receivers. The identity of the jet was confirmed once it landed at the Dibrugarh airport later in the day.

The Antonov 32, or simply referred to as AN32, has been an old work horse of the Indian Air Force carrying materials and personnel across the country. There are about 100 of these Soviet-origin aircraft that the IAF operates, and these have undergone upgrades in 2009 in a $400 million deal with Ukraine.

These were inducted between 1984 and 1991 but the IAF is now looking to phase them out within the next decade. The IAF is looking at 56 C-295MW transport aircraft manufactured by M/s Airbus Defence and Space S.A. and TATA Consortium of Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) led by TASL.

ALSO READ | Wing Commander Deepika Misra is first IAF woman officer to receive gallantry award

This is the first project of its kind in which a military aircraft will be manufactured in India by a private company. The total cost of the project is Rs 21,935 crore. A total of 56 aircraft will be manufactured, 16 will come in flyaway condition and the rest will be manufactured in India.

In 2019, 13 IAF personnel lost their lives when an AN32 crashed in Arunachal Pradesh, leaving behind no survivors. In 2016, an AN32 aircraft went missing flying from Chennai to Port Blair with 29 onboard as it flew over the Bay of Bengal.

ALSO READ | IAF helicopter makes emergency landing in Jodhpur after glitch

A similar disappearance of an AN32 was reported in 1986 soon after its induction in IAF as it flew over the Arabian Sea. In between, there have been other crashes reported but the AN32 remains a key transport aircraft for the IAF till date even as the replacement plan is ready.

It has been pressed into service in all sorts of emergencies — from military purposes in Ladakh to carrying covid relief material at the peak of the pandemic. Replacing the ageing AN32 fleet is a must, keeping in mind a series of crashes the aircraft had suffered over the years.