A month after she hit the headlines, Kavita Gadgil, mother of fighter pilot Abhijit Gadgil who died in a MiG-21 crash, is set to launch her public campaign.The Indian Express first reported Gadgil’s plea on Martyr’s Day (January 30) calling for transparency in the inquiry of repeated MiG-21crashes.Fourteen months after she lost her 27-year-old newly-married son on the Rajasthan border, she launched the Abhijit Air Safety Foundation to raise questions about the airworthiness of MiG-21s. She received hundreds of phone calls, e-mails and letters of support.Gadgil has decided to embark on a tour by March-end to meet her supporters and collect their signatures. She plans to meet the President later and hand over a petition to him.‘‘The President headed a high-powered committee probing MiG crashes when he served as Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister in 1997. I am certain he would understand my concerns,’’ she says.She would first go to Nagpur, Kolhapur, Sangli, Vidarbha, Bangalore and New Delhi. ‘‘I would speak publicly to make more people aware that India is needlessly losing valuable financial as well as trained human resource in MiG crashes during peacetime operations. My first task is to make the IAF admit there is a problem with the fighter jets.’’As her campaign kicks off, many families who lost their near and dear ones have begun breaking their silence. Delhi-based Dharam Kaur, whose 24-year-old son Flying Officer Deepak Dahiya has been reported ‘‘missing’’ when his MiG-21 reportedly ‘‘crashed’’ in Assam in April 2002, says: ‘‘Is it possible that a fighter plane crashes and no remains of the plane or the pilots can be found?’’
