India agog at latest twist in Ambani ‘sabotage’ plot

India is in the grip of a suspected murder plot involving billionaire Anil Ambani that would not be out of place in a Bollywood blockbuster. It began on April 23 when it was discovered that someone had apparently tried to kill Ambani by sabotaging his helicopter. Now the man who saved the telecoms tycoon by spotting the damage to the chopper has himself been found dead on a Mumbai railway track.
 
Bharat Borge, 47, an engineer for a private maintenance company, noticed that the fuel cap on Ambani's 13-seat Bell helicopter had been tampered with. On closer inspection he discovered that there was gravel in the intake to the gearbox which would have brought the helicopter down on its next flight the following day, when Ambani was due to use it to avoid Mumbai's notorious traffic congestion.
 
A senior pilot said: "This was clearly an attempt at murder... Shortly after taking off, the pebbles would have entered into the gearbox and would have caused midair loss of power."
 
Five days later, on April 28, Borge was found dead having been hit by a train. Police are now investigating both the sabotage and the engineer's death. It has been reported that there was a note in his pocket addressed to the detective leading the investigation in which he claimed that after talking to the police he had been visited by officials from Ambani's company and had become frightened. Sources at the company have questioned the authenticity of the note.
 
Witnesses said they saw Borge walking along the railway tracks before stepping in front of a train. Police suspect he committed suicide, but the engineer's family think there is something "fishy" about his death and have demanded that India's Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI) investigates the death.
 
The sabotage and death have caused a sensation in India. Anil Ambani, 49, is one of India's highest-profile tycoons. He is also famous for his long-running and bitter feud with his elder brother, Mukesh. Together they inherited their father's Reliance Group, making them two of India's wealthiest men. In pounds and dollars they are both billionaires; in terms of the Indian rupee, they are  trillionaires, with Mukesh a few billion ahead. ·